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Oh ... poop: Doc's expertise catches students' attention

Dr. Todd Brubaker has what he calls an "interesting skill set," one almost guaranteed to make him a hit with school-age kids. He's an expert on poop.

Dr. Todd Brubaker has what he calls an "interesting skill set," one almost guaranteed to make him a hit with school-age kids.

He's an expert on poop.  

Now finishing up his residency through the KU School of Medicine-Wichita Department of Pediatrics, Brubaker had an earlier career as an environmental engineer. That made him an obvious choice when Andover Middle School asked the KU School of Medicine-Wichita to send a speaker on the topic of safe, clean water.

"For four years, I crawled around in sewers," Brubaker told the students, who responded with cries of "ugghhh" and "that's awesome!"   "So I saw a lot of poop," Brubaker said. "I've been up to here in poop." "In poop?" the students asked. "In poop," Brubaker confirmed. "Now, I had waders on."  

Clearly enjoying himself, Brubaker just might have a third career as an entertainer if he ever gets tired of being a doctor. Once he got their attention, Brubaker emphasized the serious point that unclean water is the cause of much sickness and misery, especially in underdeveloped parts of the world. And much of the problem stems from the failure to properly treat human waste.  

"It's really a poop problem," he said.

Brubaker showed the students photos of African children scooping untreated water out of ditches and drains. "This boy wants clean water," he said. "Right now, he doesn't have it."  

Noting that bacteria can make up half the weight of solid human waste, Brubaker said untreated waste can cause a wide range of illnesses, from e coli, salmonella and staph infection to tapeworms, hepatitis, liver failure and kidney failure.  

The biggest problem of all is diarrhea, which Brubaker said kills two to four million children a year, making it the second leading cause of death. Children with chronic diarrhea "may have diarrhea ten to twenty times a day. I know -- gross."  

But the result is dehydration and sometimes death. "That's the saddest," Brubaker said.

Brubaker also showed the students slides of a jaundiced man with yellow eyes -- "Cool," several students yelled -- and the so-called "Dracula worm" or Guinea worm, working its way out of a human body.

To let students know there is an answer to the problem of tainted water, Brubaker showed them illustrations and explained how several types of wastewater treatment systems work. He worked at a wastewater plant in Denver for four years before beginning medical school.  

"Couldn't they do that in Africa?" one student asked.

"I like where your head is at," Brubaker said.  

Brubaker's talk to the sixth and seventh grade students was part of a clean water project the school just launched this semester. Headed by math teacher Stacey Ryan, the project has students study the issue in the context of math, science and other subjects.  

There's also a service component to the project. The students plan to raise money to send "life straws" -- a type of water filtering device -- to students at a school in Kenya.


KU School of Medicine-Wichita