Senior biology major Troy Curtis isn't waiting until after medical school to make a difference in international health care. An internship in Uganda, Africa, this past summer inspired him to initiate a life-changing service project: planning and funding the construction of a tuberculosis clinic to serve more than 1.5 million impoverished Ugandans.

When Curtis volunteered for a service internship at a public hospital in Uganda, he expected conditions to be less than ideal. However, he could not have prepared himself for the unsanitary procedures and lack of basic medical supplies.

"The wards just had rows of beds cramped together with no space for families to sit down," Curtis says. "Sometimes the doctors did not even have gloves when they were doing operations."

After just a couple of weeks of observation, Curtis was asked by the hospital staff to perform many of the same duties as the nurses, including cleaning wounds, giving injections and hooking up IVs. Many of the patients he saw were living far below the poverty line. Some did not even have 75 cents to buy a blood transfusion to save their lives.

"I saw a nurse refusing a transfusion to a man who couldn't pay, so I bought it for him," Curtis says. "Think about it: 75 cents. That was all it took to save someone's life. Stories like that are happening every day while we're buying our $5 lattes."

Troy Curtis Curtis pictures himself returning to Uganda once he has his medical degree. "There is so much to be done," he says.

In the meantime, he is tackling one of Uganda's biggest health threats: tuberculosis. The country is constantly threatened by an epidemic because patients with tuberculosis are treated in the same beds and with the same equipment as other patients. In response, Curtis has commenced a $10,000 project to build a tuberculosis clinic that will isolate contagious patients and keep the potentially fatal disease from spreading.

He thought of the idea for the tuberculosis clinic almost his first day at the hospital.

"I just couldn't believe the nurse when she pointed to one of the patients and said, ‘He has TB.'" Curtis talked to the in-country coordinator for his internship and turned his idea for a tuberculosis clinic into action.

The clinic will be a small, simple building with separate rooms for males and females. It will also include office space for an outpatient TB clinic, which will provide regular care according to the World Health Organization's treatment standards.

"They have the knowledge and ability to treat tuberculosis, but they just don't have the resources to quarantine the patients like they need to," Curtis says. "I'm trying to provide those resources."

Biology professor Dr. Dara Wegman-Geedey, one of Curtis's personal and academic mentors, trusts that if anyone can finish this project, Curtis can. Wegman-Geedey has known Curtis since he was a prospective student and praises his motivation, intelligence and maturity.

"When you're with Troy, you get this feeling that he's a positive person," Wegman-Geedey says. "Some people get ahead because they won't take no for an answer. Troy isn't like that. He looks carefully at a problem and then says, ‘Why does this happen?' and tries to figure out a solution."

Wegman-Geedey cannot help but feel this project is just a first step for Curtis. "Before his internship, Troy was thinking about global health from an academic perspective," she explains. "But this internship gave him his first opportunity to make a real difference, and he's doing it. There was no way Troy could leave Uganda without changing what he saw."

Curtis' internship was organized through Experiential Learning International, an organization that sends young people all over the world to serve others in need. In addition to his work at the hospital, he directed a water project that fulfilled a fieldwork requirement for his environmental studies minor. His team built a filtering system to supply fresh water to a village that had been relying on a muddy, contaminated pond as its only water source.

Although working at the hospital was an eye-opening experience, Curtis says the water project was probably the most meaningful part of this trip. He was sometimes discouraged at the hospital because he could not do more to help without his medical degree. However, when he completed the water project, he knew his time and energy had directly improved the lives of more than 500 villagers. "I knew something really, really good had been accomplished."

This feeling of hope and accomplishment motivates Curtis in his current TB project and his future career endeavors.

"It is the most rewarding feeling. I have never experienced anything else quite like it," he said. Although Curtis cannot foresee exactly what he will be doing in the future, his internship in Uganda has led him to a life of service by opening his eyes to those in need.