Like many young Armenian-Americans, I had always been interested in seeing my motherland and when I graduated college in 2004 I decided that it was a perfect time to do so. Being medical school-bound I had secured an observership position in the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Microsurgery at Clinical Hospital No1 in Yerevan and the Armenian Medical Association, and I was accepted into Birthright Armenia. At the time I did not have a very good grasp of Armenian, I had never been to Armenia, I had no family there, I was unfamiliar with the city in which I would be living and the hospital in which I would be working-though it was my motherland, it was a foreign country and I was not sure what to expect, especially with the healthcare system.

My Birthright experience was eye-opening for me. Not only did I extensively travel the country in the fifteen weeks that I spent there, I learned the language and most valuably as a professional student-to-be, I was able to see the very inner workings of healthcare in the country. My position allowed me to participate in the diagnostics, procedures, patient visits and surgeries, but also allowed me to see under what conditions Armenian medicine had to operate. Through this, I fully appreciated early on that doctors in Armenia have to deal with a clear lack of resources, unorganized bureaucracy and the absence of certain regulations and standards, I also understood that these same doctors were well educated, very capable and extraordinarily resourceful.

One of the more interesting paradoxes in Armenian medicine that I picked up while I was with Birthright was that Armenia as a nation does not need any more doctors, while many Armenians as people are in desperate need of doctors. In fact, Armenia has more doctors per person than France, Britain, Canada or the US. But the reality is that many Armenians do not and often times cannot go to the doctor because they do not have the resources or they do not have access to them, nor are doctors evenly distributed throughout the nation. This is especially in the most rural and remote regions of the republic.

This paradox stuck with me when I went back to the US, and when I was thinking about going back to Armenia as a medical student this summer, I kept that in mind. From my experience with Birthright, various non-governmental organizations, and my work at Clinical Hospital No 1, I knew about the Armenian Eye Care Project (AECP) and decided that I wanted to work with them in a short ophthalmological observership. The AECP was founded by an American-Armenian ophthalmologist and has become a sustainable and very efficient organization within the Republic of Armenia. The organization has formally trained Armenian physicians who go out to the provinces, screen hundreds of people a week for eye problems and offer surgeries either at their mobile eye clinic or in Yerevan. What the AECP has essentially done is surpass the apparent shortage-surplus paradox for eye care, making it accessible to all with the necessary resources needed for Western-style treatment.

With the AECP I was able to follow the doctors as I would in the US, making my trip an excellent educational experience in ophthalmology and gaining links to doctors in Armenia, expanding my professional network. But as a medical student, the invaluable experience I gained rotating with the AECP meant far more understanding the condition of the Armenian healthcare system and knowing that the organization that I was participating in was truly solving a problem that I see is a real concern in the country. Furthermore, having a good appreciation of how the people we treated lived, understanding their language and having prior knowledge about medicine in Armenia gave even more weight to the experience. Thinking back to how foreign Armenia was to me before, without my first experience in Armenia with Clinical Hospital No 1 and Birthright Armenia, I would not have been prepared, fully appreciated nor would I even have such a professional opportunity to be involved with such a program.

Shant Korkigian (USA)
Birthright Armenia Volunteer