From bottom left, clockwise, Occupational Therapy student Jamie Betts, Nursing student Jackie Dalabon and Physical Therapy student Anuja Gopalan work on fitting a wheelchair at Hope Haven in Guatemala. Contributed photo
FAIRFIELD, CT - Two groups of Sacred Heart University students and faculty from the College of Health Professions spent time away from campus during October on medical missions. While one group went to Guatemala and the other to Jamaica, both found that cooperation and teamwork was critical to their success.
Guatemala
Six occupational therapy students, six physical therapy students and seven nursing students, accompanied by Margo Gross, Ed.D., OTR/L , LMT, LMFT; Lenore Frost, Ph.D., MS, CHT, OTR/L; Kathleen Fries, Ph.D., MSN, RN; Michelle Cole, BSN, MSN; and Donna Bowers, PT, PCS, MPH, traveled to Antigua to work with Iglesia Del Camino to set up the bi-annual mission. While there, they worked with patients suffering from physical disabilities, assisted children at a malnutrition center, worked in a wheelchair factory and tended to elderly residents.
Bowers said this mission differed from past SHU trips because of its interdisciplinary focus on collaboration. The team was divided into tripods with one student from each of the three disciplines and a faculty member. “We wanted to the students to understand one another’s discipline,” she said.
The tripods split up to work with the various groups, and Bowers’ group was assigned physically challenged children – many of them confined to cribs, beds and strollers. The facility’s staff is “compassionate and loving,” Bowers said, but they are so busy they don’t have time to let the children socialize. The team got six children together on mats on the floor and played with them. The exercise was so successful that the staff had the children on the mats and ready to go when the students came back the next day. “They understood the children’s need to move around and socialize. The second day was really gratifying,” Bowers said.
Collaboration was also evident at the malnutrition center – run by a Florida church – where the students worked to get nourishment into children who could barely stay erect. Bowers was gratified to see a little boy who she had worked with the previous year running and playing. “He could barely stay erect enough to eat last year. He looked like a different kid. The teaching we did last October clearly had an impact on the caregivers at the center.”
Other projects during the trip included teaching sessions by the OT group on play and positioning, by the nursing students on safety, hygiene and diet and by PT group on motor development. They presented the staff with a manual covering their presentations, and parents received a handout written in Spanish.
At the wheelchair factory, the students fit six of the 75 people on the waiting list for chairs. After raising the $200-per-chair before their trip, the students – working in tripods – painstakingly built and fit the chair to the user. “As a teacher, it was an incredible experience to see the students use the things they learned in the classroom and watch them solve problems together,” Bowers said.
Finally, the students accompanied a husband and wife as they delivered soup to the homeless. When one man complained that his feet hurt, the students jumped right in, removed his wet socks and tended to his severely wounded feet. With no supplies available, the PT and nursing students improvised using tee-shirts to clean his feet and make bandages. “It was an emotional moment for me,” Bowers said.
During the debriefing on the way home, the students discussed the respect they had gained for one another and the importance of their disciplines. “Working in tripods achieved exactly what we hoped it would. It enabled the students to learn from each other and see that there is also a lot of overlap,” Bowers said.
From left, undergrad Laurel Hibbard, Dr. John Paul Ayala of Norwalk, CT, undergrad Dana Brooks and Professor Shery Watson see a patient in Whitefield Center, Kingston, Jamaica. Contributed photo
Jamaica
The Jamaica mission involved 37 health-care professionals, including 10 undergraduate nursing students and four nurse practitioner students from SHU who traveled to Kingston with faculty members Shery Watson, MSN, RN; Julie Stewart, DNP, MSN, MPH, FNP-BC; and Heather Ferrillo, APRN, MSN, FNP-BC. Working with Sister Grace Yap, founder of the Franciscan Ministries in Jamaica, the team worked in primary care clinics, participated in surgeries, cared for people developing an organic farm and fitted people with donated eyeglasses.
Enduring stifling heat at the clinics, Watson, who was on her fourth mission with SHU and 13th overall, said the nursing students took triage and pharmacy duty, while the nurse practitioners treated patients. She said it was eye-opening for the students to see the difference in medical care from what is available in the United States. “The students worked as a team and did an amazing job. They knew exactly what to do,” she said.
At Braes River, where the farmers were toiling in the fields to bring sustainable organic food to the region, the students were again exposed to medical conditions they had not seen before, such as skin rashes and scabies. “There was a lot of learning,” Watson said.
Though the students obtained the same clinical experience they could have in the United States, Watson pointed out that it was much more intensive. “They administered medications, took the required notes, served in the surgical rotation and educated patients about their prescriptions. When it came time to run the eyeglass clinic, the students improvised by using the lettering on a vitamin bottle to perform eye tests,” Watson said. “They were very creative.”
By the end of the trip, 44 surgeries had been performed, including a gall bladder removal, hysterectomies, fibroids and hernia repair. “Using a team approach, they saw how it works from pre-op to post-op – all the while becoming more comfortable and confident as they advocated for their patients,” Watson said. “They also got to see the various roles that nurses, physicians and nurse practitioners can fill. For some of them, the experience helped them choose a specialty.”
Watson is most proud of how well the students worked together. “They complemented each other. It really felt like a team this year. We had fun – wherever we were, we made the best of it. These trips serve the mission of the Sacred Heart University – both educating our students and providing a necessary service to the people of Jamaica.”
