Urinary Tract Infections in a slum community in Brazil

The purpose of this trip was to characterize patterns of resistance and their association with clinical symptoms of E.coli caused Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) in an urban slum population outside of Rio de Janeiro. Daily activities involved working in the health post in the slum community. There in the health post, I would review medical records and conduct interviews with patients. Objectives achieved, I gathered data that describe the morbidity of UTIs in this population and gathered data on resistance profiles of E.coli isolates from this particular community. I learned how to take initiative in developing, starting, and completing your own project with little supervision, and I learned how to overcome the multiple obstacles that arise when working abroad. The results from this project will be used to inform local health structures of the needs of this population in regards to UTI detection and treatment and will also inform local doctors of resistance patterns thus informing their treatment protocol for UTIs. This work also pioneers the implementation of this type of UTI survey in other slum communities.