Information for the Unconnected

Today, Carlos Adon is an experienced HIV/AIDS specialist in a well-equipped private clinic in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Twenty years ago, he was like most of the country’s other recent medical school graduates: he had been sent into the countryside for 12 months of mandatory service, known as a pasantía year, as a poor community’s sole doctor. With access to only rudimentary equipment and medicines, Adon lugged around outdated textbooks and did his best to serve his patients. But his lack of up-to-date information created problems. At one point, a patient who appeared