Winter 2008
Presidential Volunteer Award recipients improve family medicine in rural Armenia
Classes represented in this story: ’01, ’03
Former Medical College of Wisconsin residents J. Slade Crowder, MD, GME ’03, and Chris Wenninger, MD ’01, GME ’04, were presented with Presidential Volunteer Awards in 2007 for medical work they performed during their residency. Both volunteered to work with the Center for International Health (CIH) to improve primary care health in rural Armenia. The CIH provides medical training and educational services to 40 countries worldwide.
Michael Mazzone, MD, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, an affiliate of the Medical College, recruited Drs. Crowder and Wenninger to develop the curriculum for one of 12 training modules, and then travel to Armenia to implement it. They joined other volunteers including David Fay, MD, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Clinical Director of the Waukesha program, to teach rural Armenian physicians and nurses to be more self-sufficient. Their goal was to reduce patient reliance on medical specialists located in the cities many miles away.
Dr. Crowder is a family practitioner at Sandcrest Family Medicine in Columbus, Ind. He described the Armenian medical system as “super specialized.” A patient with an ear infection would go to an infectious disease specialist. Someone with chest pain would see a cardiologist.
“Those in broad general practice, or what we see as family practice, lost some of their skills,” he said.
Dr. Crowder taught a chest pain module. He discovered that the lack of equipment, supplies and other items that require financial resources was not the main setback in rural areas. It was a lack of updated medical information.
“It wasn’t that they needed big hospitals and catheter labs and things that you think of as million dollar items,” he said. “A rural doctor who sees someone with a heart attack and knows to give him aspirin, nitro, morphine, a beta blocker and get him on a bus into town, it might save his life.”
Similar to the buy-a-man-a-fish vs. teach-a-man-to-fish adage, Dr. Crowder noted that his work training rural physicians will have a more long-term impact than volunteering to staff a clinic in an underserved area.
“The idea of training physicians to be able to care for the whole patient and all problems and be more self-sufficient really appealed to me as a family physician,” he said.
Dr. Wenninger is a family practitioner at Reedsburg Physicians Group in Reedsburg, Wis. He taught a musculoskeletal module. During his last couple days in Armenia, he discovered that his teaching extended beyond his subject matter. As part of the module, the Armenian physicians called back some of the patients they had previously been unable to diagnose and whose conditions seemed orthopedic in nature.
“A lady came in with symptoms that ended up being very consistent with systemic lupus , a totally non-orthopedic problem,” Dr. Wenninger said. “And within five minutes we could figure that out, whereas before, they didn’t have any idea that it was such a problem.
“Certainly, our health care system has many flaws, but at least from a training standpoint, I can now appreciate that our process is much more thorough and a lot more hands on. And the experience in Armenia was a good challenge for me from a teaching standpoint to try and refine my abilities at teaching people when their background and culture is a lot different.”
The President’s Volunteer Service Award program resulted from President George W. Bush’s 2002 challenge to all Americans to make time to help their neighbors, communities and nation through volunteer service. The program is a way to thank and honor Americans who inspire others to participate in volunteer service.
Left: Some of the volunteers working to improve primary health care in Armenia gather in a cave outside the Noravank Monastery, including Chris Wenninger, MD ’01, GME ’04, (white shirt) and Michael Mazzone, MD, (floral shirt).
Right: J. Slade Crowder, MD, GME ’03, with one of the translators who helped the team communicate with local physicians.