About this Blog

  • My first quarters
  • My first on-site car
  • My first on-site house

Thank you for taking an interest in my journey. If you are visiting this page it’s probably because you know me, but if for some reason you don’t, here’s the deal: My name is Juan, I am an Argentine-Canadian internal medicine resident working out of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia with a focus on humanitarian medicine, and these are my field journals. 

Humanitarian work has always been my goal, even before I started medicine. As a final year medical student – at the height of covid no less – I was able to finesse myself an elective with a humanitarian group in the Panamanian Jungle doing point of care mobile medicine. Acting as the medical lead due to unprecedented staffing shortages, my first day thrust me right into the thick of it as I ran a trauma in the field for a 13 year old boy kicked unconscious by a horse. One broken pulse oximeter, a makeshift stretcher, and two blistered hands from extricating our patient through kilometres of dirt path later, I confirmed what I already knew: that I had found my calling. This was the beginning of a career that I have no doubt will take many twists and turns, and a journey that I hope to share with anybody who will care to listen.

I am not trying to be Ernest Hemingway

Before you read my story I want to make something clear: I do not pretend to make any grand discoveries or revelations, nor do I believe that I am capable of providing insight on life that people cannot find themselves. I am not trying to be Ernest Hemingway. These are my journals. I have decided to make them public through a blog to share a window into this world in hopes of inspiring others to embark on a life of humanitarian service. It feels cheap to rehash the same conversation over and over, or to recycle messages via whatsapp to the point where the anecdotes of my work become rehearsed like one of my (tremendously mediocre) amateur stand up gigs. This page will save me the frustration of having to tell the same story a dozen times to a dozen people. You will find archived the notes from all my missions, many of them different in their own way: refugee camps, NGOs, government field hospitals, academic centres, and some things in between. I hope that you will find something of value in them; in particular to my colleagues in medicine, I want you to see yourselves practicing in these non-traditional settings. Our help is needed in these places more than anywhere else.

Regards,
Juan

I can be reached by email at juanlopeztiboni@rcsi.com