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Going Beyond the Bordersby April Sutton 
Ip (second from right) and team in Nigeria Benjamin Ip, M.D., is clearly moved as he reminisces about Wol Tick—a once-elegant Sudanese man who suffered from a cruel sleeping sickness. The disease, carried by tsetse flies and characterized by high fevers, joint pain and strong headaches left Wol Tick in constant agony. "He always had a smile on his face despite suffering from this painful disease and the loss of his son from a kidnapping," said Ip, a class of 1993 Baylor College of Medicine graduate. "He told me he walked all around Sudan looking for his son. After his treatment he went on his way. I don't know if he ever found his son." Ip has volunteered with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) since 1997, and has worked on nine assignments from the Kosovo crisis to the Angola famine. Wol Tick is just one of the hundreds of people that Ip has been able to treat. His first trip with MSF was a nine-month mission to Nangqian, China to supervise medical care, to exchange knowledge and to train the local doctors about Western medicine. "We were trying to see how we could complement traditional and western medicine," Ip said. "We provided direct care to Tibetan nomads and I was able to gain valuable experience in high-altitude medicine and treatment of cold-induced injuries." Before completing his assignment in Nangqian in 1998, Ip quickly departed for Yushu Prefecture where thousands of Tibetan nomads were starving after vicious winter snows killed tens of thousands of yaks. The animals supplied their needs including food and skin for their tents. "Every trip has been a little different and it's a constant learning process," Ip said. "You finish medical school and you think that you know a lot, but these experiences have challenged me and taught me more than I could learn in a hospital in the U.S." MSF is an organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries. In emergencies and their aftermath, MSF volunteers provide health care, rehabilitate and run hospitals and clinics, perform surgery, battle epidemics, carry out vaccination campaigns, operate feeding centers for malnourished children, and offer mental health care. When needed, MSF also constructs wells and dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting. In 1999, MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Ip just completed his ninth trip with the organization in April 2005 in Luanda, Angola, where an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus landed him in the war-ravaged country. "I can still see and hear the people's cries," Ip said. "This incurable hemorrhagic fever affected so many people; it was an extremely emotional time." Marburg disease, in the same family as Ebola, was first identified in 1967 when laboratory workers in Marburg, Germany and in Frankfurt and Belgrade who had come into contact with infected monkeys from Uganda became ill. "Being a part of this organization has made me a better physician and changed my perspective on patient care," Ip said. "I've been able to work in situations that I never imagined—in refugee camps, isolated villages and war zones—and work with very limited resources. The reward is the appreciation we receive from people who live very difficult lives." Helping the most underserved and having the opportunity to teach and learn from local physicians how to better help their patients has been Ip's desire since graduating from medical school. When Ip completed his residency in 1996 in family practice in Fort Worth, he was fortunate to have no financial debts, so he knew that there was no better time than the present to travel and experience valuable and worldly experiences. "I wasn't committed to a relationship and I didn't have any kids, so I took the leap and decided to help those who often need medical care the most," Ip said. "We go to countries where their medical facilities are below average to non-existent and we give them a needed hand." Ip was born in Singapore and immigrated with his family to the United States at 14. He graduated cum laude from the University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in chemistry with a specialization in earth sciences and a minor in music in 1989. He completed his residency in family practice in Fort Worth in 1996 and earned a Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1999. He went on to receive his Masters in epidemiology from the School of Public Health at Harvard University in 2001. Ip hopes that more doctors will volunteer and experience what it's like practicing medicine overseas. Ip says he thinks he would've been a different person if he had transitioned straight from residency to private practice. |
Patient CareA New Medical School for Botswana ResearchStars and Workhorses: A Varied Future for Stem Cells Unfolding the Tiniest Problems EducationCommunity ServiceAlumni & DevelopmentThe Story Behind the Jewish Building From a One-Room School to Medical Research College News
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Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring 2006 |
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