Harmon is about to start his residency downstate, but he hopes to return to Northeast Michigan and serve as a rural doctor.

Harmon grew up in the Ann Arbor area. His family had a cabin on Grand Lake and they visited Presque Isle in the summers. About seven years ago, the family moved permanently to Presque Isle, where Harmon’s dad, Alan Harmon, is a volunteer firefighter and the deputy chief at Presque Isle Township Fire Department.

Dr. Brian Harmon attended Michigan Tech to earn his undergraduate degree. While at Tech, Harmon was part of a group called Medlife. Through Medlife, Harmon had the opportunity to be a part of three service trips to Peru. Throughout the school year, Harmon helped fundraise for the trips by doing things like bagging groceries or pumping gas for people and asking for donations.

Each service trip was a week long, he said. Five times during the week, the Medlife team operated a temporary health clinic in remote villages in Peru.

Courtesy Photo Dr. Brian Harmon holds a cake celebrating his graduation from medical school.

Harmon explained the unique challenges that exist in Peru’s capital city. The city’s infrastructure is fit to accommodate around 1 million people. However, there are around 5 million people that have moved to the city. Many people are living in poor conditions without access to water, electricity, health care, and quality housing.

They live in the outskirts of the capital in small, remote villages. Harmon and the Medlife team set up a health clinic in those villages and provided free health care.

When they weren’t operating the health clinic, the team helped with service projects like building stairs connecting villages for safer travel and planting tree gardens to prevent rock slides.

After earning his undergraduate degree, Harmon took a gap year to become an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). He volunteered that year as an EMT at the Presque Isle Township Fire Department before starting medical school at Michigan State University.

He has volunteered at the Presque Isle Township Fire Department for the last five years. While in medical school, Harmon volunteered during the summers and whenever he was on break.

Now, Harmon has graduated from medical school and will begin his emergency medicine residency in July at Henry Ford Providence Hospital in the Metro Detroit area.

Harmon’s experience living in Presque Isle and serving in Peru made him realize how fortunate he was to grow up in a place like Ann Arbor with easy access to health care. Harmon hopes to return to Presque Isle after his residency to provide people with access to the quality care he had as a child.

“What’s pushing me a lot towards wanting to go back is giving people access to the care that I was fortunate to rely on when I was younger,” he said.

“Growing up I had access to everything medically,” he said. “Then I went to Tech and they had one hospital and they could do very minimal. You’d have to fly people out to Marquette, Green Bay, or Mayo.”

Harmon realized while volunteering as an EMT that he wanted to specialize in emergency medicine.

“You do a lot of emergency medical calls, and that’s what geared me towards wanting to do ER as my specialty,” he said.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.