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Former Caledonia grad Geoff Mell makes a difference for India residents
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By Courtney Gran
Argus Student Intern
In many ways Geoff Mell has lead the life of a typical Caledonia native. He graduated from high school and moved out of his parents home at 18 to attend Loras College. He graduated as a bio-chemistry major after four years of staying up till the late hours of the night writing 15-page papers and cramming in last minute study sessions before a big test. He then moved on to graduate school at Palmer College of Chiropractic to pursue his aspirations of becoming a chiropractor some day.
But recently, Mell did something that only a small minority of people will even have an opportunity to do. He spent June 20 - July 4 in India making a huge impact on the lives of nearly 12,000 local residents.
On June 20, Mell along with 50 other Palmer College of Chiropractic students made the 8,422 mile journey to India as a part of a clinic abroad learning experience. According to Mell each student pays his or her own way, but the trip is fully organized through the school. Doctors who have already graduated and went through the clinic abroad experience come back to lead the trip.
The two week affair, according to Mell, is a way for the students to not only get hands-on experience in the field but it also is a way to help people who would not normally have access to health care.
During his first and second days in India, Mell worked at a school and treated students between the ages of six and 16. Mell said that they mostly did chiropractic work and physicals. Because students in India do not have access to health care like we do here in the U.S., Mell would often refer them to the hospital if he thought they needed extra assistance.
“They do not get to see a doctor as regularly as we do here so we would get to see many different cases,” Mell said. “We would see people with heart problems and it was nice to be the first person to send them in the right direction because a lot of the time they did not even know that they had a heart problem.”
In fact, Mell said that was one of the most fulfilling things about his clinic abroad experience.
“The last day we got to see patients that we had seen the day before that have had pain for years and just thought that they had to live with it,” Mell said. “After one day working with us they noticed huge improvements.”
It is moments like those that Mell finds so fulfilling. He said that it was amazing to see the lines and lines of people who walked two to three hours just to get a chance to see them.
“We had lines like you would not believe. It is good to go to a foreign country and get such a good turn out,” Mell said. “And they were all so appreciative of us.”
According to Mell, he learned more from the clinic abroad than he did in school. The experience was very hands-on and he said he treated close to 40 people in an eight hour day. That is a good 30 people more than he would normally treat at an nine-to-five hour job here in the U.S.
“It was a very great experience,” Mell commented. “It is not just about chiropractic anymore. You have to be able to recognize other things too.” Mell feels that his time spent in India was good preparation for his future in the chiropractic career field.
Mell will graduate from Palmer College of Chiropractic in three months after of total of three years of intense studying at the college. After that he will work for a doctor in the field for a four month period before he can go into the field alone.
Mell says one of his top priorities is to go back to India as a doctor with the clinic abroad students to offer his own guidance to them. It was such a fulfilling experience for him he hopes someday he gets to do it again.
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