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Medlife was created by Nick Ellis, a University of Maine alumnus, in 2005 as a student group. It has since transformed into a non-profit organization with student chapters at Dartmouth, the University of Vermont, the University of New England and UMaine. Medlife stands for Medicine, Education and Development to Low Income Families Everywhere. The president of Medlife at UMaine is Juan Vanegas. Vanegas said, “[Medlife's] goal is really to improve the healthcare and really improve their [Ecuadorians] access to healthcare.”
Medlife’s mission is “. to help families achieve greater freedom from the constraints of poverty, empowering them to live healthier lives.” Each year over spring break, a small group of students from UMaine and at least one physician go on a medical mission to Ecuador. They are there for the entire two weeks. They stay at a hostel and each weekday visit a different community. Over the weekend, the group gets to do fun things like going to the zoo or markets.
Most communities are very rural and have almost no routine access to medical care. They generally lack modern comforts such as running water, paved roads or full-time electricity.
At each community, stations are set-up to measure blood pressure, height, weight and other general health assessments. There is also a station where the Ecuadorians are shown how to brush their teeth. If there happens to be a dentist, there will be a station for the dentist. “The students are in charge of running this [the stations]. They get that hands-on experience that they are looking for,” Vanegas said. The students can actually assist the physicians and dentists while they are there.
Throughout the year, money is fundraised to help support the trip. One of the other things the group will do if they find someone who needs immediate care, such as surgery, is pay their hospital expenses. One case involved a woman who only came to Medlife because her daughter insisted. The woman had an extremely enlarged thyroid. It turned out she had thyroid cancer. Because of Medlife, she was able to get the surgery to have it removed. She now works for Medlife.
There are some requirements to actually go on the mission. The person has to be actively involved in Medlife – go to meetings, fundraisers, etc. They also have to take care of getting a series of immunizations, and a passport is not included in the mission fee. The mission fee is $850, which takes care of meals, travel (in Ecuador) and lodging. The plane ticket can vary from $500-800. The total price is somewhere around $1,250. This isn’t meant to discourage people from going. The price is significantly lower than other medical missions. Vanegas said, “There are a lot of other missions that go on . but they’re going to charge you a lot more than Medlife charges you. For example there’s [missions that are] $1,200-1,300 just for the mission fee itself. I know I’ve heard of students that go to Asia and they have to spend $2,000 for a week.” Vanegas went on to say “We have some incentives like, if students can find a doctor to go on the mission they get $100 off their fee. [Also], with all the fundraising we do, you get 20% off your fee.”
Vanegas explained that normally only one group goes over spring break, but because of the amount of interest expressed by students and if physicans can be found to go, he said there is a possibility of having two missions simultaneously that will just go to different regions.
For more information regarding Medlife, the website is http://www.medlifeweb.org. There is also a Medlife conference on FirstClass. Juan Vanegas can also be reached with any questions over FirstClass.
