Doctors Providing Care In Rural Mexico Return To Oklahoma

A dozen Tulsa doctors and medical students are home after spending more than a week in rural Mexico. Their mission was to provide free health care and spread the gospel.

A mix of OSU-medical students and resident doctors spent nine days in southern Mexico, caring for those who would never get health care otherwise.

After living in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico for over a week, even texting on a cell phone seemed like a luxury for the Tulsa medical students and doctors.

"It'll change your life, going and sleeping on a mat on a hard concrete floor and eating bean gravy for a week," said Dr. Adam Greer.

But, Greer said it was worth it. His group of fellow Christian doctors, called In His Image, partnered with OSU-Medical for the trip.

Together, they treated nearly 400 indigenous villagers in their medical clinic.

Greer said, "First goal was to bring the gospel to the Meztecan people. The second goal was to use the vehicle of medicine to do that. So it was really cool just to be able to be a part of that."

The team worked long hours, treating all kinds of ailments.

"As we were going to bed, patients still came, so that was - what a wonderful way to keep serving," one of the volunteers said.

It was his second trip to Oaxaca. He said he knows this is his calling, working as a family doctor in a country that needs him.

"It was really a wonderful experience for us medical students to kind of reignite the passion of - this is why we're doing all this bookwork and all this studying and all these hours," he said.

The team also did house calls, sometimes hiking half an hour to get to their patients.