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New Partner, Janet Young, MD, Performs Medical Work and Lectures at a Community Clinic in Bali

Contact: Sarah Hay
800.476.1504
hays@cep.com

(July 2005, Emeryville, California) –Janet Young of Sutter Delta Memorial Hospital recently returned from a trip to Bali, Indonesia. During the month of May, she worked in a community clinic, gave medical lectures and updated the local doctors on the practice of emergency medicine.

Dr. Young taught a total of 16 lectures at the Bali International Medical Clinic (BIMC). Her other responsibilities included acting as a consultant on difficult cases, taking care of traumas, and running codes.

Dr. Young was able to receive academic credit for the trip, as it was a volunteer elective through Stanford University. Since 1998, approximately a dozen physicians from Stanford and UCLA have worked at the clinic as consultants and teachers. She ultimately selected Bali because of its need, safety, natural beauty, and it was a place she could take her seven-month-old.

The experience was eye-opening and inspiring for Dr. Young. She feels the work she did in Bali most certainly impacted her practice. “It made me thankful for what we have and respectful of the role we play in people’s lives.”

Dr. Young quickly became aware of the discrepancies between practicing medicine in the United States and Indonesia. “The medical education is different there,” she says. The most shocking aspect, she recalls, was the little amount of education the providers received.

“In Indonesia you do not have to do a residency to practice medicine. You attend medical school for six years and are then considered a general practitioner. It’s very difficult and expensive to do a residency there, so most practice right out of medical school without much training.”

As a result, she points out, skills and styles vary considerably between physicians. According to Dr. Young, the physicians are competent, just lacking opportunities to receive formal education. The most interesting aspect of her work was “going back to the basics and trying to practice medicine without the resources we are spoiled with, like CT scanners.”

Because the motorbike is the main mode of transportation in Bali, Dr. Young notes there are plenty of trauma cases. “Most don’t wear a helmet,” she explains. “What’s even scarier is I would see complete families on one bike-even infants!”

The most touching case she saw was a nine-month-old boy who had a congenital heart defect. “The little boy was extremely malnourished and looked horrible,” she says. “The mom had been watering down her formula because she could not afford it. Most don’t even need medical care, just the resources we take for granted, like food and shelter.”

Of the island itself, Dr. Young reflects, “We had a fabulous time enjoying the local culture. The Balinese are friendly people and they love children; it was easy to travel with an infant. Our favorite place was Ubud, the cultural center of the Bali. We visited the monkey forest and learned about Buddhist religion.”

After seeing the culture up close, Dr. Young laments the country’s lack of resources, the greed brought on by money, tourism, gender bias toward local women, and the fact that the masses were blamed for the stupidity of a few during the 2002 bombing.

Above all, Dr. Young will remember the local people as being characteristically kind, peaceful, polite, and very respectful of nature.

“Traveling is more than a trip,” she says. “It’s a window to reality and if you are lucky you get a glimpse of humanity. It was a humbling, fantastic, fun experience in paradise.”

Dr. Young recently joined the partnership, following her graduation from the Stanford University/Kaiser Emergency Medicine Program. She received a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a minor in Spanish Literature from the University of California, Riverside and her medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Dr. Young is a Level 1 Partner in California Emergency Physicians Medical Group (CEP). CEP was founded in 1975 and is the leading provider of physician staffing, management, and consulting services for Emergency Department and Ambulatory Care Practices in California. CEP includes more than 1,000 providers who treat nearly two million patients each year. For more information on CEP, visit the website at www.cep.com.