The College of Osteopathic Medicine’s students recently returned from their Dec. 2012 trip to Vietnam. Through the college’s international medical outreach program, second-year medical students travel to rural communities in foreign nations to provide humanitarian aid and medical services, including medical supplies, physicals, health lessons, and cancer screenings.
Robin J. Jacobs, director of international medical programs and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine, preventive medicine, biomedical informatics, and public health, said, “The outreach programs benefit patients living in communities that lack sufficient health care and provide our students with hands-on medical training. Also, the experience provides students an opportunity to learn about other cultures.”
Many of the people who live in these communities have never seen a physician before and suffer from tuberculosis, malnutrition, and/or diabetes.
Along with students, doctors, nurses, physician assistants, dentists, translators, and other volunteers travel abroad three times a year: during spring, summer and winter break. Once in the designated country, the group sets up a clinic in which necessary medications are prescribed. The group also helps distribute eyeglasses, toys, clothes and other helpful supplies.
Belinda Collias, third year student in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, traveled to Peru, where her group “worked out of an established clinic with more resources and follow-up care.” That allowed them to perform more extensive procedures, such as minor surgeries which Collias says advanced her skills and “knowledge as a future physician.”
Two NSU committees decide where the students will travel to: the International Medical Outreach Committee, in which the members are elected by peers, and a faculty committee. Several factors are taken into consideration when deciding on a country, including cost. Students pay up to $3,800. Though the medical students cover their own airfare and lodging, NSU covers the faculty and administration salaries, and medications. Typically trips have 20 to 50 students.
Logan Huff, second year medical student, was involved with the school’s missions to Ecuador and Vietnam. As the student leader in Vietnam and involved in the research project, Huff said, “I traveled to Ecuador in March and Vietnam in December 2012 with NSU’s International Medical Outreach Club. The trips are incredible opportunities for personal and professional growth through cultural immersion, extensive patient contact, and active participation in a medical team.”
Collias served as president of the NSU-COM International Medical Outreach Club from 2011 to 2012, during which time she assisted with the organization of medical outreach trips to Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
“We worked under rustic conditions without access to the technology and modern medicine we are used to in the states, which required a great deal of improvisation, fast thinking, and adapting to provide the best care to those patients with limited resources during a one-time visit,” said Collias. “It was an amazing learning experience, which really enhanced our hands-on diagnostic skills.”
Jacobs said that one of the program’s goals is to give students’ an awareness of global issues of poverty and malnutrition that impact the U.S.
Collias said, “Both trips were truly eye-opening in terms of appreciating the medical need that exists throughout the world, and realizing that we have the opportunity to use our medical degrees to help many people in impoverished settings such as those we saw in Peru, Ecuador, and other developing countries. Experiencing medicine from this standpoint really changed our perspectives and may have influenced the specialties we decide to pursue after medical school.”
The college’s international medical outreach programs will travel to Ecuador this spring and Jamaica this summer.
Collias said, “I think the international medical service trips are of great benefit to both NSU students and faculty, especially for those who may have never traveled abroad or experienced life outside of the world they grew up in. Any type of cultural exchange is beneficial. At the very least, volunteers come back from these experiences with sharper clinical skills and a sense of confidence, having adapted to the practice of medicine in such a challenging and different environment.”
Huff said, “[The trips] offered perspective on the current status quo of healthcare in the United States and its deficiencies. These experiences allowed me to reevaluate my goals and role as a future physician in order to better serve the healthcare needs of our local and international communities.”
