The world is a classroom for Brown medical student from North Providence

Providence Journal
http://www.projo.com

Saturday, May 23, 2009

By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE –– Along with many receiving diplomas this graduation season, Mark Brady has his sights on making a difference in the world.

But Brady, who took a year off from his studies at Brown University’s medical school a while back to get a master’s degree in public health from Harvard, and who is set to receive both a master’s and a medical degree from Brown this Sunday, sees that difference more in terms of improving the lives of millions of people, not just a few.

After graduating from Providence College seven years ago, Brady not only did some personal things, such as hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, but also went twice to Cambodia, where he volunteered for six months at a hospital for children and taught courses in statistics to doctors.

His pursuits also brought him to Thailand, where he and a doctor studying at Brown addressed an international conference on HIV/AIDS, to South Africa, where he and a professor researched what patients themselves had to say about how best to allocate anti-AIDS medicines, and to Peru and Bolivia, to study better ways to diagnose tuberculosis and combat Chagas disease.

And he did all that while working toward three degrees from Harvard and Brown.

Maybe because his mother, Alice Brady, has long been an elementary school nurse in his hometown of North Providence, Brady, 29, has always had a deep interest in medicine. It’s one reason, he says, that he majored in biology at PC.

But after finishing up at the school in 2002, Brady saw a need to take a year off to travel. Cambodia seemed like a good place to start, since he had once taken a course on Cambodian history and knew a Rhode Islander who directs a children’s hospital there.

Besides, he explained in a recent interview, “Cambodia is as far away from Rhode Island as you can get. I always wanted to work in the developing world. It was one of the reasons I wanted to go into medicine.”

It turned into a worthwhile trip, turning his interest in working in the developing world into a passion.

“I realized I could make a disproportionate impact working overseas.”

For instance, even though he had only minored in math, he discovered that the physicians in Cambodia knew less than he did when it came to that subject, and he was able to help by teaching a course in statistics.

He also went on to create a computer server to help the hospital store all of its medical records, the first of its kind in the country.

But it was the overall experience that convinced Brady he should concentrate on emergency medicine — since it’s one specialty needed in hospitals all over the world.

In working toward both a medical degree and a master’s degree in medical science from Brown, Brady did orthopedic research into knee construction and “dabbled” in a number of other projects, including research in the treatment of HIV-infected children.

On his way back to Cambodia the following summer, Brady and the doctor went to the international AIDS conference in Bangkok, where they presented evidence that anti-HIV/AIDS drugs can be as effective in treating children in “resource-poor” areas such as Cambodia as in wealthier nations, provided they are administered in a timely and consistent fashion.

While cost of the HIV drugs has sometimes been seen as a deterrent to treatment, Brady said two-tier pricing by the drug companies, and the presence of less costly generic drugs made in Brazil, India and Thailand, has reduced the problem. But even more important, Brady believes, is having someone go to children’s homes every day to make sure they don’t forget to take their medicine.

Brady had already been going to Brown for three years before deciding to take a year off and attend Harvard University on a scholarship to get a master’s in public health. There, he did “a lot of number crunching” and traveled to South Africa with a professor from Harvard to try to figure out whether to spend more money on first-line anti-HIV/AIDS medicines for as many as possible, or to hold back some money in order to buy more expensive drugs for those for whom the first-line drugs don’t work.

The two decided that one way to solve the quandary was to ask AIDS patients themselves. The answer came back loud and clear — the patients felt it more important to provide the front-line drugs across the board. “Even though many of the patients aren’t literate, we shouldn’t just assume that we know better what they want.”

Before returning to Brown, Brady also went to Peru under a grant from the National Institutes of Health to research ways to diagnose tuberculosis and, in Bolivia, to combat Chagas disease, which is caused by parasites.

“I really do want to go into epidemiology because there is that opportunity to help millions of people,” Brady said while preparing for his residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, with an emphasis on emergency medicine, which begins a week after graduation.