Ryan's reflection

A Sugar Scholar story about his time during his first mission.

I am profoundly grateful for the generous support of the Sugar Scholarship, which allowed me to join Medicine in Action (MIA) on its latest mission to Jamaica in March 2025. This experience was transformative for me as a medical student—not only in the care we provided but also through the stories, challenges, and resilience I witnessed every day.

Our journey to rural villages in and around Brownstown and St. Anne’s Bay was marked by winding roads pitted with deep potholes, creating traffic jams that sometimes stretched for hours. As we snaked slowly up into the mountains toward St. Ignatius Catholic Church—where our pop-up clinic was housed—we passed seas of schoolchildren in pressed uniforms, street vendors shouting their daily wares, and mangy dogs darting from beneath brightly painted lorries, the smells of festival and jerk chicken hanging in the air. At St. Ignatius, we saw the full range of needs—sexual and reproductive health, infectious disease, cardiac care, and mental health. Despite limited laboratory capabilities, we conducted screenings for glucose dysregulation, urinary tract infections, and even coordinated cervical cytology screenings. Much of our time centered around preventative care, helping patients understand their existing conditions and encouraging positive health behaviors to maintain wellness. For many, getting to a health facility was difficult and costly. Some had not seen a doctor in years.

Even at the hospitals, we faced the realities of practicing medicine in resource-limited settings—surgical schedules disrupted by power outages, operating theaters condemned due to broken plumbing, limited access to basic supplies, and long waits for operating rooms due to equipment failures or staffing shortages. The hospital had sustained damage during the recent hurricane season; despite these setbacks, staff provided the best care possible under challenging conditions. Yet, the determination of our team, local physicians, and patients never wavered. Many of the women who came to Victoria Jubilee Hospital had waited years—sometimes decades—to have their concerns heard and treated. Too often, they had faced embarrassment, stigma, or the financial and logistical barriers of being uninsured or underinsured. Others simply had no access to surgeons trained in urogynecological procedures.

One woman, suffering from an 18-centimeter prolapse, told us she had avoided seeking care for years due to fear and shame. Her vaginal tissue was raw and atrophied, inverted uncomfortably, making intimacy impossible and causing severe incontinence. Through MIA, we were able to offer her compassionate, culturally sensitive care and a surgical intervention that restored not only her physical health but her dignity and quality of life. Over the course of the week, we performed 11 surgeries for patients like her and provided postoperative support to help them recover and adjust. Their gratitude was overwhelming—one woman, tears in her eyes, told us, “I have a new lease on life.”

What moved me most was MIA’s dedication to creating sustainable change. Jamaican surgeons were involved in every aspect of patient care, from preoperative planning to hands-on participation in the operating room. Through mentorship and training, MIA helped build local surgical capacity, ensuring that these procedures could be performed independently by Jamaican healthcare providers in the future. This collaborative approach—combining technical expertise with cultural humility—made a lasting impact not only on the patients but also on the future of women’s healthcare in the region.

Thanks to the Sugar Scholarship, I was able to deepen my understanding of how global health efforts can be both patient-centered and capacity-building. As an MD candidate at Yale with a background in public health and nonprofit leadership, I will carry these lessons forward as I pursue a career as a physician-activist committed to advancing health equity for underserved populations worldwide. I hope to return to Jamaica and volunteer with MIA again in the future, continuing to build on the meaningful work we accomplished together.