Today we had the opportunity to catch up with Vanessa Dippon (Hamlin, Class of 2013).  Vanessa is in her second year at the National Cathedral School in Washington, DC, and is already well on her way to pursuing her life-long passion for medicine.  Vanessa has wanted to be a Doctor since 3rd grade and is inspired by her mother’s native Thailand to volunteer in mobile health clinics all over the country through the Saeng-Saikee Hetrakul Foundation.  The Foundation provides free health care services to rural communities.  Vanessa described a common procedure that the Foundation provides to alleviate calcium deposits in the fingers of rural agriculture workers that become crooked from overuse.  The finger is numbed, and the bone of the finger is scraped in order to straighten out the “trigger finger”, as the syndrome is referred to.  For more information on the important work of the Foundation contact me at: polk@hamlin.org