Lessons in healing from abroad 

By Dimitri Tito, DO, Johns Hopkins Medicine 

In the vibrant neighborhood of Douala, Cameroon, the air is thick with the smell of street food and the constant hum of the railroad. Long before sunrise, a line had already formed at the Ndogbati Protestant Hospital. By mid-morning, hundreds of people stood patiently in line in the heat, not for an emergency, but for a rare chance to receive medical care. 

As a doctor, I was trained to look at facts and data. But Cameroon taught me to look beyond the numbers to the human being behind them. Our team worked tirelessly to screen people for a triple threat of hidden diseases: diabetes, heart disease, and mental illness. I remember meeting a woman named Ms. Mona. She’d stood in that long line for hours and told me she was always very tired. When I evaluated her, her blood pressure was at a level that risked a stroke, and her blood sugar pointed toward undiagnosed diabetes. 

As we talked, a deeper story emerged. Ms. Mona was carrying the weight of her entire family on a tiny income, and that constant pressure had manifested as deep sadness, as well as high blood pressure. In her community, there was no word for depression; there was only the daily struggle to survive. 

In Cameroon, I realized that being an exceptional clinician isn’t just arriving at an accurate diagnosis. It’s understanding that stress, poverty, and physical health are interconnected. I carry these lessons with me. I now ask every patient about stress, work, access to food and housing, and pair routine screening for hypertension, diabetes, and depression with concrete links to community resources. I slow down enough to hear what isn’t said, involve social work earlier, and treat the story and the disease together. Seeing the person behind the numbers has made my care more effective. 

This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.