By Helen Natalia – CIMSA UGM
A sentence to describe what GoSCORP means to me is “It was the best fourteen days in my life”. GoSCORP 2018 which was held on August 12th – 26th is an interactive international volunteering program held by SCORP Taiwan in Taiwan. The goal of the program is to introduce a whole new perspective of medical education, to encourage future doctor counterparts around the world to try out more possibilities to contribute to the worldwide society and to cultivate the ability to sense the needs of others. The whole program was divided into two main activities, Academic program week and Volunteering program week.
The first week which was academic week mainly consists of trainings, lectures, hospital visits and seminars. I know It may sound as It was a boring week. Well, It turned out that this first week gave us memorable life experiences as much as the volunteering week gave us. On the first day, we had a training about medical inquiry. It was all about how to do a medical history taking to patient. Right after the training, we practiced how to do standard patient inquiry to a simulation patient with the help of the contact person to translate to the patient. Then, we had a volunteering preparatory time which was a regular session on night to prepare the next week volunteering program. In this session, we were told about the group divisions, activities we were going to do, cultures and things we need to know before we go there. The day ended by conducting a welcoming party at a chinese restaurant with endless food keep coming to the tables! What a beautiful night to start the week of GoSCORP 2018.
The next day, we had two lectures. The first one was about Medical Presentation 101. We learnt how to make an eye-catching presentation by learning some tips to do editing on Power Points. The other one was about Traditional Medicine by Chi-Fang Chen, MD, MS, PhD(c). The lecturer mentioned that Traditional Medicine is all about taking into account the whole pattern of each physical and mental-emotional symptoms and combining treatment using either herb, acupuncture, massage, dietary suggestions, or life style recommendations. Later, the lecturer did a practice of treating symptoms to a few participants by doing acupuncture.
We had a psychiatry training on day three by an Associate Professor and Attending Psychiatrist, Kevin Chien-Chang Wu, MD, LLB, LLM, PhD. The training was about the history of psychiatry, symptomology and psychiatry diagnosis deeply in Schizophrenia. Take home messages from the lecturer was “ Psychiatry always involves good communication : when , what , how to communicate “. Then, we visited Museum of Medical Humanities. There we saw lots of collections of Histories about NTU Department of Medicine, human specimens, tropical medicine, laboratory apparatuses and instruments. We also went to NTU Hospital to have a training about Minimally Invasive Surgery. Participants were all full of enthusiasm to do the surgical knot tying , laparoscopy simulation and visited a microscopy laboratory.
This forth day’s morning was began by a discussion about medical ethics. We were given a topic about Stem Cells to discuss and present it to other groups. It was so exciting. This session helped us to see a topic from so many different perspectives from the participants which come from so many different countries all around the world. Next, We strolled around the area of NTU main campus. It is so beautiful with a huge park inside, such a relaxing place.
On the last day of academic program, we had only one training by Derrick Ding-Cheng Chan MD, PhD, FACP. It was about Elderly Health Care Training. We were told about aging population countries and all about geriatric medicine : Principles of Successful Aging. The academic week finished by doing a pizza party together and we had a free time afterward same as the previous four nights. On weekend, we had a social program to Shi Fen and Jiou Fen. Shi Fen, locates in Pingxi Area, is a marketplace famous for people to do a wish written on a lantern and set lantern to the sky at the train track. Second place Jiou Fen is an old street that is well known with its famous Taro Glutinous Rice Cake. There are many unique tea houses here and we can see the beautiful ocean view of Keelung Outer Sea as well.
The second week was about volunteering in an elementary school located in Wufeng District, Taichung City. To begin our volunteering program, we had a registration for the student in the program. We had ice breaking time with the children to begin the day. Then, on each four days, we taught the children about certain topics. On the first day, the children were taught about organs in the body and oral hygiene : How to brush teeth correctly and oral diseases and sports injury to the children using poster. On the second day, we had drama sessions about identifying waste, do recycling and healthy diets. We made a pot plan with the children using bottles. We also had “ Around the World” Session which the participants were asked to explain about their home country to the children. The participants also had a home visit to a local home with doctors. Listening to the medical consultation they had and later discussed the results together.
On the next day, we shared languages from each of different countried to one another ( participants) and children. They learnt about various languages from participants’ countries. On the third day, there was a handcraft session. The handcraft we made was a book handcraft from a big carton paper which hopefully the children can give the book as their gifts to their Grand Fathers to celebrate Grand Father’s Day. On the last day, we had a knowledge treasure hunt with so many different topics to do in so many interactive ways to teach such as amazing race, playing games, videos and so on. On the last day, the book which we prepared on first week were given to the children with photos inside the book which made the book looks like an album. We wrote messages for them, hoping one day we would meet in another beautiful chances.
It was such a remarkable experiences with the children, other participants, contact persons and organizing committees. We learnt so much from each other and spent so much time together. Creating amazing memories with amazing people. We came as strangers and left as a family.
