---

BY TIFFANY LIAO

In print | November 8, 2007

When Yongjun Heo ’09 first arrived in Venezuela, he was armed only with limited Spanish and no formal medical training.

The very next day, Heo found himself in the jungle, working as the primary assistant to a doctor responsible for 4,000 patients. He would stay there for the next two months, living what he calls “the best experience of my lifetime.”

It all began last year, when Heo decided he “wanted to try doing something different.” Andres Pacheco ’09 told Heo of an opportunity to work with Simon Sambrano, a doctor working in a free medical clinic providing care in the village of Urimán.

Heo was immediately interested and applied for a Swarthmore Summer Social Action award to fund his trip. By April 2007, he received the grant and “realized I was going to be in Venezuela in the outskirts of the Amazon jungle.”

Despite his lack of hands-on medical experience, Heo was trained immediately and soon responsible for doing “everything the doctor did. As soon as I stepped off the little plane, I hit the ground running.”

Heo admitted that initially, he was “very, very hesitant to do anything concerned with the actual practical medicine because in the U.S., we don’t have that opportunity.”

However, Heo quickly found that there was little time for uncertainty when the clinic fielded 60 patients a day and Sambrano worked 12-hour days.

“I realized I really needed to do the work. I dove right in and got over that initial fear and saw some incredible things,” Heo said, adding that in Venezuela, his college education qualified him for the work.

His schedule was often grueling, starting at 7 a.m. and lasting for hours as villagers streamed in and out of the clinic. The majority of Heo’s tasks consisted of administering vaccinations, assisting in childbirths, putting in IV lines for malaria patients and treating wounds. He also worked with snake bites and various skin conditions.

While in Venezuela, Heo experienced the vastly different conditions of health care firsthand. “The clinic is a home, just with open doors. It was amazing to see the lack of equipment there,” Heo said. “The table where we did the paperwork was the same table where we stitched patients. We just laid some plastic down.”

Heo also observed how Sambrano had to work with limited supplies. The health administration gives doctors set supplies of medicine, regardless of what quantities or medications are actually needed. Additional supplies must be flown at great expense by plane to the remote village.

Part of Heo’s learning experience included adjusting to the “amazing amount of responsibility” of a doctor. “The patients who came in with malaria, their lives were in the doctor’s hands, our hands,” Heo explained.

While Heo became involved in the community, he initially had to overcome language and cultural boundaries with the villagers. It took Heo several weeks to effectively communicate with the villagers with a combination of his limited Spanish and hand signals. He remembers that there was much laughter at the expense of his “heinous Spanish.”

Heo, who is Korean American, also found his race to be of great interest to villagers.

“I said I was American and they were very confused because they expected a blond, blue-eyed person,” Heo said. Over time, Heo was referred to affectionately as “chino,” Spanish for “Chinese man,” and he soon grew accustomed to the curious stares of the village children.

When he wasn’t treating patients, Heo actively participated in the community. He taught children to use a computer or, more often, explained what a computer was, did the occasional odd job around the village and would play soccer with the villagers.

After a month in Urimán, Heo spent a month in the village of Wonken, with another doctor. While there, he was struck by the contrast between the two villages.

According to Heo, the economy of Urimán is based primarily on a diamond mine that had recently been shut down by the government. There is a huge economic crisis in the village, with the result that “the villagers eat once a day if they’re lucky. Everyone is malnourished.”

“Because of this economic shock, lack of food and lack of hygiene, there has been more sickness than ever before this past year,” Heo said.

In contrast, Wonken had a comparably good school based on an agricultural program and the standard of living was much higher, with the result of fewer patients. Heo was inspired when he saw how proper education could greatly alleviate the problems in Urimán by attacking the root causes.

“I began to think, what can I do?” Heo said, “I realized that the villagers in Urimán will never have the opportunity to ask anyone for any resources or any help whereas I, as a college student at a good college, do.”

Currently, Heo is developing an internship program for college students to follow his path, free of charge. Heo has met with Venezuelan officials, as well as Swarthmore faculty about realizing his program and received positive support. He is recruiting students from Swarthmore and other colleges for the program. After graduation, Heo plans to return to Urimán and help create agricultural schools and malaria prevention programs. However, Heo stresses that making a difference doesn’t always require a plane ticket.

“Tutoring children in Chester, participating in volunteer activities at Swarthmore, these are all avenues to do good in the world. With the opportunities you are given at Swarthmore, you can do a lot, and that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned,” Heo said, “If enough people can work to do that, I think we can slowly make things right.”

If you are interested in joining Heo’s efforts, visit http://www.pemonhealth .org once it has finished construction.

---

« RETURN TO LIVING & ARTS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »