VGHP is partnering with Dr. Carlos O’Bryan, a 2011 graduate of the Ventura Family Medicine Residency, to assess needs in providing care to underserved peoples in Maneadero, Mexico.
Maneadero is an agricultural community five miles South of Ensenada in Baja California. There is a strong migrant farm worker population, many of them Mixteco people from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Dr. O’Bryan intends to provide care to Mixtec peoples as his life’s work. He presently practices at Las Islas Family Medical Clinic, a county-run facility in Oxnard which provides care to a mostly immigrant, and strongly Mixteco, population. Over the next five to ten years he intends to transition more of his practice to Maneadero, where fewer healthcare options exist.
As an interim step to full time practice in Maneadero, Dr. O’Bryan and VGHP are partnering to conduct medical outreach and perhaps provide clinical care on a part time basis. The first step is medical outreach; ad-hoc provision of care to gain exposure and assess the needs in the community. If medical outreach activities indicate a need and a culturally appropriate fit, the mid-term goal is to start a clinic that is open on weekends, with Dr. O’Bryan serving as medical director and with rotating volunteer doctors from the Ventura community.
Note: our first VGHP-sponsored rotation will take place February 16-17. Dr. Carlos O’Bryan (MD), Dr. James Appel (MD), and Dr. John Chung (DDS) will provide care at Casa Hogar, an orphanage for abused children in Maneadero.