Cook Children's Pediatrician Provides Collaborative Care on Medical Mission Trip

Carrie Pyle, D.O., a pediatrician at Cook Children’s Pediatrics Walsh Ranch, recently returned from a medical mission trip to Kenya where she provided collaborative care to patients of all ages. During her time there, Dr. Pyle and her team worked tirelessly to treat a variety of illnesses and conditions. Her experience in Kenya left a lasting impact on both her and the community she served.

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By Carrie Pyle, D.O.

I had the opportunity to go on a medical mission trip to Migori, Kenya through an organization called Kenya Relief. The organization operates an orphanage, a school and a medical clinic.

Nearly every two weeks, a medical mission team travels to Migori to spend about four days working in the clinic. The teams are made up of outpatient providers, surgeons of different specialties, anesthesiologists, nurses and surgical techs. My team included a surgeon, two podiatrists, six certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs), a family nurse practitioner, a radiologist, a sonographer, a social worker and myself.

I was able to go on the trip with my husband, Garrett Dupree, who is a CRNA. He provided anesthesia to surgical patients.

My whole experience was incredibly challenging and humbling. I saw kids ranging in age from a couple of months old to young adults. I saw patients with conditions I had only studied in textbooks but had never seen in real life. Because we did not have internet access to our usual online resources, I had to rely on my knowledge and advice from my team to care for these patients. We were able to work through this obstacle as a team and brainstorm ways to work together to provide better care.

Some days I saw some very heartbreaking cases. One of the first patients I saw was a young girl who has never been able to walk. Since she was an infant, she has experienced seizures intermittently and hadn’t received any treatment. We had a long conversation and answered some of the family’s long-term questions, even though the prognosis wasn't the answer they had hoped for.

I also saw another young girl who had developed a very serious bone infection called osteomyelitis, which caused swelling and drainage in her knee. She never received treatment to cure the infection. She needed to go to a children’s hospital immediately for antibiotics and possibly surgery to save her leg and prevent the potentially life-threatening infection from spreading.

Sending her to this hospital posed a significant financial burden to the family, but they were determined to get their child the care she needed. Together as a team, we helped the family cover the cost so that she could start treatment. By the time our team left, she was slowly improving.

Overall, my time in Migori was incredibly heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Every patient we saw was so kind and grateful to be heard and to receive help. At the same time, I was really shocked by the degree of poverty and the significant barriers to medical care that are accepted as the norm for Kenyans. They’re faced with decisions to either have food on the table, send their children to school or receive medical care, and oftentimes, medical care is chosen last. I left Kenya feeling grateful for the high quality and comparably easier access to medical care that we have here in the States.