Merging his passion for travel with his professional training, Andrew Ingersoll served as a medical missionary in Africa this summer.
The 1999 Traverse City West Senior High School graduate is a nurse with a specialty in neurosurgery. An inveterate world traveler and eager adventurer, Ingersoll volunteered with Medical Teams International, based in Portland, Ore.
He joined a team of doctors and nurses supporting the Hospital for Women and Children, living and working onsite for two weeks at the end of August. The team babysat the hospital while missionary staff attended training.
"It was very basic care that we provided but it was appreciated,” said Ingersoll, who received his nursing education at Michigan State University. "The first week there, [the staff] showed us the ropes and the second week they left town.
Essentially, the Malian doctors and nurses were competent enough to provide day-to-day care and we were there for emergencies.”
Ingersoll's most wrenching memory was of a mother losing her twins after hospital staff struggled to save them.
"That was probably the worst day but it provided us with the most cultural perspective,” he said of the very poor country where mothers rarely become attached to their children — many die by the age of five — and raising twins can be an insurmountable hardship.
The hospital, which is run by Christian missionaries, is located in Koutiala, Mali, a city of 150,000. The landlocked west Africa country is predominantly Muslim but the care provided at the hospital is welcome and appreciated.
"I was quite surprised with some of the sociological phenomena associated with being there in a Muslim country,” said Ingersoll, who kept a computer journal and emailed friends and family periodic dispatches. "The patients we saw were Muslim but they realized that the missionaries who established the hospital, their intentions were good; it was definitely interesting.”
Reflecting on his experiences in Africa, Ingersoll traced his desire to combine globetrotting and service to high school mission trips that broadened his horizons. A member of the Central United Methodist Church, he served over three summers with his youth group for a week each in rural West Virginia, on an American Indian reservation in South Dakota and in inner city Denver.
"That kind of sparked my interest in the humanitarian field so much so that during the summer [in college] I worked for the organization that we did the trips for,” he said.
Growing up in a small, rural, middle class Midwestern town, Ingersoll acknowledged the safety and the insularity of daily life — both a far cry from his explorations as an adult.
"I'm very glad I was able to grow up in Traverse City but then I took it upon myself to go out and see the world,” he said. "Being able to get out and see the world, I feel very blessed to be able to do that.”
Currently living in Miami, in March Ingersoll will begin a master's program in international public health at the University of Sydney, Australia. He will focus on tropical medicine and HIV and, after completing the one-year program, aspires to an international career. He is ready to move on from nursing in a hospital setting in the United States, where paperwork and defensive medicine abound.
"I'm really drawn to Cape Town [South Africa,]” said Ingersoll, noting that while he has an ear for languages, living in an African country where English is spoken would be welcome.
One thing is certain: traveling for work and pleasure will continue to be an integral part of Ingersoll's existence. Already with six continents under his belt and on his second passport, he hopes to log the seventh continent, Antarctica, before he turns 30.
Restless by nature, Ingersoll spent the second half of his African trip this summer in Morocco. He has also visited southeast Asia for six weeks, trekked in Patagonia and visited some of the world's biggest cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Hong Kong. While living in Seattle after college, his work schedule freed up blocks of time every month for these travels.
"I feel like it's my duty as a citizen of the world to explore and learn about the different people of this world,” he said. "To not learn about various customs, culture rules and practices would be an injustice itself.”
"You've got one life, you might as well make the most of it,” Ingersoll added.
For more information about Medical Teams International, see their web site at www.medicalteams.org.