Cauldron

Issue date: 5/15/07 Section: Other News

Media Credit: Holly Gindy Gaining experience Students give back by providing basic healthcare to children who whose families cannot afford it for

Fourteen students, members of the Pre-Health Professional Society, will work with volunteer physicians from the foundation for International Medical Relief of Children to help build a clinic in El Salvador and educate its community about basic health care.

Starting May 20, the student volunteers will spend six days shadowing doctors in the mornings and offering health lessons and house calls during the afternoons, faculty sponsor John Palasota said. "They will be treated as mini-interns," he said.

Sophomore Isabella Kusters said that, as a pre-med student, she needs experience working with patients. "Being a doctor is all about helping people, and this trip will give us the opportunity to experience this first-hand," Kusters said.

According to Palasota, pre-med students need education beyond classroom instruction. "Being a physician includes a service aspect beyond showing up to work in the morning and going home in the evening," Palasota said. "Service learning experiences broaden students' perspectives in a way we can't in an academic setting."

Junior biology major Caroline Duong went on a similar PHPS mission last year and said that it changed her life. "I went into the trip last year wanting to go into pediatrics," Duong said. "I still want to be a pediatrician, but I also want to do medical missions." She said she hopes this trip will inspire other club members to think differently about the healthcare industry. "The field is so much more than the big bucks," she said.

PHPS Vice President Holly Gindy, a junior business administration major and pre-dental student, said she feels the trip motivates pre-health students. "I saw a lot of kids last year who, by age 10, had permanent teeth that were already decaying," Gindy said. "Seeing how much these people need strengthened me in my goal to go to dental school and pushed me to work harder."

Volunteers will pay $80 each to participate - a fraction of the actual cost of $1,290 per student. A Brown Foundation grant will cover many of the trip's costs. Funds from Trustmark Bank, the Council of Clubs and student fundraising efforts will help offset additional expenses.

While this is not the first medical mission trip in which UST students have participated, it is the first in conjunction with an outside organization. According to Gindy, the previous two trips were organized "from scratch" based on a student's contacts with doctors in El Salvador.

The FIMRC physicians are all volunteers, mostly from the United States, whose goal is to provide basic medical care to children in need. In addition to the El Salvador mission, FIMRC runs projects in Costa Rica, Paraguay, Uganda, Haiti, India and Ecuador.

According to Palasota, the primary health concern for these children is malnourishment and improper hygiene. "Through this trip, the students will become aware of the differences in health care," Palasota said. "Hopefully they will see they can't take what we have in the U.S. for granted."

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