An LMV clinic is an amazing experience. Sites vary significantly, from a mayor's house, to a school, town hall or church, to an existing town clinic opened to LMV doctors so that we can provide services the town doctor doesn't offer. Each site provides a different challenge: no electricity, poor sanitation, no dental chair or exam table. LMV addresses all these and more through a basic process of planning, setup, operation, and cleanup.
Trip coordinators in the US work closely by telephone, fax, and email with local contacts at the clinic destination in advance of the trip to establish as clearly as possible what facilities and resources will be available to the LMV clinic team. Then, whether arriving by small aircraft, commercial airliner, or ground transportation to the area, an LMV clinic team's first working task upon arrival is to assess the clinic site, confirming its availability and the status of its sanitation and any available electricity, running water, and equipment and supplies. The outcome of the assessment may require negotiations with village authorities, local healthcare providers if any exist, or others to find an alternate site, transfer local equipment from another site, or have electricity or water provided. At this point, the LMV team sets up any equipment or supplies it brought with it.
Clinics themselves may operate differently depending on their size and the number of other organizations with which LMV is collaborating. We undertake our Oasis health fair twice a year with a number of other groups, and the patient registration, triage, and treatment areas are correspondingly large but very well coordinated; the former may take place in a tent in a school parking lot, while the latter often occurs in individual school rooms. Some of our Latin America clinics are just as large, with local University medical students, Lions Club volunteers, and others working alongside LMV volunteers to provide dental, medical, optometric, chiropractic, pediatric, health education, and other clinic services to over a thousand patients over the course of two or three days in one building. At the other end of the spectrum, some of our Mexico clinics are small, with a single LMV dentist, dental assistant, interpreter, and general volunteer (who is often also the pilot who flew the team to the clinic site) treating 40 patients over the course of one and a half days.
The more remote the location, the more improvisation is often required: an LMV team may have to recruit a taxi driver and his friend to drive around town with a loudspeaker to let residents know the clinic is open; volunteers may hold flashlights to allow dentists to see a patient's teeth clearly, repair a finicky generator (after having flown it in with them), or sterilize instruments by hand; the doctor may have to use a folding table for an exam table, or cover windows with aluminum foil to provide privacy or darkness. Many roles are shared or divided: an RDA may demonstrate home dental hygiene practices while a general volunteer hands out Spanish-language fliers to clinic visitors.
And when a clinic is completed, the team packs up what comes home, returns local equipment to its place, and often leaves the site itself in a cleaner condition than upon arrival. By this time volunteers may be worn out, but the gratitude of the patients they helped is its own reward; villagers often fete the departing team, offering food, drink, and hugs along with their thanks.
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