The Role of Anthropology and Service in the World of Medicine
by Gregg Kennedy, AB 2009

Gregg Kennedy with a friend at Hogar San Francisco de Asis near Lima, Peru

Anthropology seems to have poked its head up in all of my endeavors since graduating in 2009. It's one of those lovely majors that doesn't necessarily direct you toward an obvious career path, but is immensely useful in everything you do. It wasn't until my last year at Washington University that I decided to apply to medical school and see how anthropology fits into the world of medicine (quite well, I have found), so I took a year off to have fun, travel, and put my application in order.

During this time, I joined Dr. Mark Manary and Project Peanut Butter in trying to reduce the number of severely malnourished children in Malawi, Africa. After six months of medical school interviews and administrative activities in St. Louis, I spent four months in the field, traveling from our base camp in Blantyre to rural villages to screen children for marasmus and kwashiorkor (wasting and bloating types of malnutrition, respectively) and enroll them in a peanut butter supplement program if they were sick. In this setting, understanding cultural interactions was infinitely more useful then my pre-med, organic chemistry knowledge.

Upon returning to the United States a year ago, I ventured down to New Orleans where I began medical school at Tulane. New Orleans is so alive with food, music, dance, and culture that I was having difficulty focusing on school, a balance that I'm sure I will continue to struggle with as I continue to get sucked into fascinating city rebuilding and reinventing projects. I have decided to commit to two such projects: Comfort Food and the Rebuild Center. Comfort Food helps high school kids who are at risk for PTSD, depression, and domestic violence by creating an environment in which we can have one-on-one, intentional conversations with the students. Once a month, area chefs come and teach the kids how to cook a meal, providing the students with a way to control their environment while promoting good relationships and conversation within the family. Nothing is better than food and family! I am also leading a group called Physicians for Human Rights and Social Responsibility, which is partnering with a local day homeless shelter (night shelters are common, but people need a place to hang out during the day, too!) called the Rebuild Center, providing tools for bike maintenance, board games, and conversation over lunch. Not only does this expose medical students to a different population group, but it allows homeless people to see us not just as a source of money or scorn.

As amazing as New Orleans is, though, I needed to take advantage of my last free summer, so after my first year of medical school I hopped down to Peru for seven weeks. I lived at a children's home just east of Lima called Hogar San Francisco de Asis. It is a place for kids to receive treatment for and recover from severe infirmities (cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, orthopedic problems, spina bifida, club foot, tuberculosis of the spine, burns, cleft palate, etc.). Most of these kids have families, but are unable to afford care due to financial, time, energy, or resource constraints. The volunteers' job is not to help provide medical care, but simply to love, challenge, and encourage these tremendously strong, vibrant, and courageous children. It was a perfect break from the rigors of medical school.

All of these projects hinge on communication and understanding, skills which I learned as an anthropologist and which will be indispensable as a physician. Thank you to WU Anthro and everything you taught me—both within the classroom and without!