This project is inspired by an encounter in 2015 with a young girl in Colonial-89, a village outside Ensenada, Mexico. She was diagnosed a paraplegic and deemed hopeless, until our mission group later identified her having GBS. GBS is an acute onset inflammatory disease of peripheral nerves, leading to tetraparesis and potentially fatality⁵. Its unique presentation of mild fever that rapidly progresses to paralysis results in misdiagnoses. 

A comprehensive online search of recent publications, with the oldest dating to only 2018, was conducted using Google Scholar. The information garnered was analyzed to establish the current status of Ensenada’s healthcare system and understand previous/potential courses of action.

Urban benefits in Ensenada diminish with distance and disappear beyond a two hour radius. Moreover, a quarter of the population lives outside this margin and suffer a myriad of consequences: insufficient resources and lower quality of life. These issues are exacerbated by a gap in health literacy, with rural citizens being more hesitant to adhere to treatments and living in poorer environmental conditions⁶. There have been multifarious studies working to combat barriers in rural medicine: telemedicine, community education, awareness programming, and capacity building³.  Data suggests a parallel between rural medicine and the world during COVID-19, such that both require intentional efforts to deliver the utmost care to isolated communities.

The review included various recent developments in rural Ensenada’s healthcare and multitudinous approaches to bridging gaps to isolated communities. GBS, a heterogeneous disorder regarding clinical symptoms, calls for a vigilant healthcare system⁴. As a contemporary boomtown, Ensenada is an exemplary city to take change². These findings point at further development using artificial intelligence, telemedicine, and rural-urban linkage cities.