CONWAY, Ark. (March 30, 2009) -- T.C. Elliott had just arrived at a casino with his grandparents when he found out he’d been named a Watson Fellow.  He marched straight to the blackjack tables and won himself $500, on top of the $28,000 he had just been awarded.
 
Elliott, a senior at Hendrix College, is one of 40 national recipients of the renowned Watson Fellowship, which funds each Fellow for a year of independent exploration and study outside the United States. Hendrix senior Ben Lownik, a Political Economy major, also received the fellowship.
 
A biology major with a pre-med emphasis, Elliott will visit three tropical countries – Brazil, Vietnam, and Tanzania – to log the cultural beliefs that influence medical treatment. His project is titled “Beliefs and Biomedicine: Investigating Culture and Health in the Tropics.”
 
The three countries are representative of the three major regions that play host to tropical diseases: Latin America, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.  In these areas, local beliefs about healing often create contrast between what natural healers would recommend and what Western practitioners advise. 
 
“My ultimate goal for the Watson year is to gain a better understanding of the major cultural beliefs that dictate the health decisions of over three billion people on our planet,” Elliott said. “I’ll speak with doctors and nurses, as well as traditional shamans and healers, with a focus on the local culture and what the culture believes about disease and about western medicine.”
 
In Brazil, for example, the hot-cold system guides medical treatment. Foods are categorized as hot or cold, without regard to their actual physical temperature.  They believe that eating an excess of hot or cold foods can tip the body’s heat balance, causing illness. Diarrhea, for instance, is considered a hot illness, so proper treatment requires limiting “hot” foods like salt. 
 
These beliefs starkly contradict the advice of the World Health Organization, which recommends that children with diarrhea be given a salt and sugar solution to replenish lost fluids. A doctor with an understanding of the hot-cold system could anticipate parents’ concerns about the salt intake and would take extra care to explain how it would help their child.
 
“You explain the Western viewpoint on medicine and then you let parents make the ultimate decision,” Elliott said.  In Brazil, where diarrhea is a major cause of childhood mortality, that kind of cultural sensitivity saves lives.
 
“With this experience, I'll be better prepared to create public health programs that factor in the cultural element,” he said. “In my opinion, public health is more about empowering individuals and increasing their capacity to help themselves than it is preventing illness.”
 
A native of Pyatt, Ark., Elliott began his medical training at age 16 as a first responder in northwest Arkansas’ Marion County.  Since coming to Hendrix, Elliott has traveled to Mexico, Rwanda and Uganda on medical missions, thanks to the financial support of the Odyssey program and the Hendrix-Lilly foundation.
 
“My Watson project would have never existed had it not been for those Odyssey projects,” he said. “What Odyssey did was give me some credibility. I can’t say my passion is tropical medicine and working for the underserved if I’ve never done that. The Odysseys are like mini-Watsons. It’s prepared me in more ways than I can imagine.”
 
When Elliott returns, he plans to travel to the United Kingdom or Australia to complete a one-year master’s degree in international public health. Then, he will return to the U.S. for medical school.
 
“I think a really neat life plan is moving to a developing country, setting up sustainable projects, having my home there for a few years and enjoying the country and the culture, and then moving to a new county,” Elliott said. “I want to start all these sustainable projects that will be there long after I’m gone.”
 
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2009 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.