Warming up for the big trip

In India, everything is possible. Despite its density and apparent squalor, India is a vibrant and thriving country. Thriving with life, and aspirations, it struggles to pull forward the wellbeing of its citizens while holding dearly to its cultural life blood. On the blurred line between superstition and medicine in this developing world, children born with deformities or those injured by burns and accidents suffer ostracism and fear. Unless they receive a life changing surgery, they will continue to live in the old India. However, with the help of G S Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital, and its sponsors Wonder Work and Smile Train, these free surgeries transform India into its bright smiling future.

We’d like to introduce our incredibly generous and charismatic host, Dr. Subodh Singh. Dr. Subodh’s infectious level of enthusiasm inspires all those within his reach. He is a gifted plastic surgeon who has spent his professional career caring for the bodies and souls of patients throughout India. Though he won an Oscar (and hearts throughout India) for his wonderful work, modesty is Dr. Subodh’s mantra. Within his hospital he is not only the chief of plastic surgery, but he is a colleague and friend to the entire G S Memorial family. Back in Boston, four students of MIT Sloan are preparing to journey to Dr. Subodh’s new India.

KC Collins, a general surgery resident in a former life, knew what lay ahead. Not only did he understand the medical setting in which the team would go from his Tufts Global Health Fellowship in Panama, but he was also a keen artist at being swindled by taxi drivers.

Cassie Rotman, on the other hand, was prepared to balance out KC’s strengths. Although she had no medical training, her background in financial planning prepared her uniquely for both the financial modeling of G S Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital’s future, and the defense of the team budget from taxi drivers.

Cutting her teeth on health insurance marketing, Michelle Villagra knew the lay of the land when it came to expanding the reach of the hospital and targeted service expansion. She also had an amazing insight with glass paperweights that stunned her bewildered team mates making her widely known as the smart one.

Daniel Roberson is a data analytics ninja. Prior to Sloan he spent several years developing state-of-the art airplanes as a Boeing engineer. While most of the team packed clothes to prepare for this two week trip to India, Daniel bypassed attire altogether and filled his pack with walkie-talkies, solar panels and ultra violet water bottles.

In March of 2014 our team will travel to Varanasi to meet with Dr. Subodh and learn from him about health care delivery in India. During our visit the hospital hopes to rough out plans for opening telemedicine clinics. With the difficulty of reaching patients in distant places, Dr. Subodh believes that a physical presence of a clinic for screening and scheduling will help the hospital to affect positive change in the most desperate parts of rural India.