For someone who had just been anointed the "future of modern medicine," Leslie Maul felt woefully under qualified. She wasn't a doctor-for that matter she hadn't even taken her MCATs -and she had little power to help the migrant workers and the indigent in rural Georgia.

The only thing that even remotely warranted the compliment was the fact that Maul had chosen to do part of her eight-week Summer Service Project Internship in Vidalia and Jefferson County, Georgia.

The genial source for this complement was the 84-year-old Dr. Doralea Harmon who was Maul's mentor through the maze of complex issues in rural healthcare delivery.

"She was so proud of us," said Maul, who is a junior pre-med major. "She was just glad we'd made it and she knew the experience would open our eyes to what it really means to be a doctor."

To the patients Maul saw, it didn't matter that this was some of her first clinical experience.

"Their interest was that I was in rural Georgia, I cared enough to stay there for a summer and I was listening to them."

‘Never experienced anything like this'

In Vidalia, as the name implies, cultivating onions is big business and the smell permeates the air. And, the onion has had a dramatic impact on the healthcare needs in this small community. Each year, thousands of migrant workers come to the community who also need services from this overburdened rural healthcare system.

For example, up until a few years ago, the infant mortality rate approached 30 percent. About a quarter of the county's 17,000 residents live below the poverty line, a figure that's double the national average. And, that figure doesn't reflect the thousands of migrant workers who come to the area for the onion industry.

To Lawrence Freant, M.D., (ND '63) who along with his spouse, Sarah Ann, established the program three years ago and sponsor the Rural Georgia Health Care Initiative Internships, the issues are often ignored.

"I'm trying to show that right here in this country there is a tremendous problem with healthcare delivery to indigent patients. I have the strong opinion that we need to focus on these problems right here," emphasizes Freant, a pathologist, thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon who teaches at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

"We haven't even touched Mississippi, South Carolina or Southern Alabama which are equally desperate for interaction from any type of healthcare professional.

"I'm quite sure that the students have never experienced anything quite like this."