Looking Back – 10 Years After an Internship

by Katrina McPherson

I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I first went to Ecuador to work at Bilsa Biological Reserve. It’s funny how I ended up there in the first place because Diane Hart, who was in charge of the Latin American internships didn’t want to let me go. She said that working in a biological reserve had nothing to do with my major in biochemistry or my future as a medical doctor. It was quite a feat to convince her that an internship in environmental conservation was indeed relevant to my future, but somehow she agreed to place me in Bilsa. Ecuador was great. People were warm and friendly, even though my third year Spanish skills were very inadequate in real life. The real experience was working and living in a remote rainforest and it was one of the best things I ever did. There is nothing that compares to the beauty and tranquility of being inside a real tropical rainforest. We all know how terrible deforestation is, but it hurts even more after actually living there. As a result, I decided that I would have to do my own part to protect some part of the world’s rainforest, but first I had to go to medical school and become a doctor.I flew directly from Bilsa to Baltimore for medical school orientation (2 days late, in fact). Even while I was studying medicine, the rainforest was always in the back of my mind, and so was working in developing countries. This time the destination was Africa. During medical school I arranged to spend 2 months working in a rural hospital in Cameroon. The people there were also very warm and welcoming and the environment was breathtaking. I thought that maybe Cameroon would be a good place to start a rainforest reserve after becoming a doctor. Well, luckily I met my future husband while I was there, so now I am permanently tied to Cameroon.After Cameroon I finished medical school and a residency in pediatrics. For the last three years I have been working in the emergency department of Miami Children’s Hospital, trying to figure out how to move back to Africa and start up my biological reserve. And besides that, we want our children to grow up in Cameroon and know that side of their family, culture and languages. Last year I began a Master’s in Public Health through Johns Hopkins and I have begun to work out the details of how being a doctor is going to directly impact environmental conservation. My thesis for that degree will include a plan on improving healthcare to those living in rural, forested areas of Cameroon. My husband is in Cameroon at this very moment working with people in some of the rural villages in the forests and learning about the many problems they face. With a little bit of luck we will have our rainforest reserve up and running in a couple of years. I will be in touch with the details of a new internship in environmental conservation in Cameroon for IE3 Global Internships.My international internship was a very important experience in my professional career and I will always be thankful for having the opportunity to work at Bilsa. I especially owe a big thank you to Diane Hart, who believed in me enough to send me on an internship that seemed to have nothing to do with my major or my future career.