A group of 15 Adrian College students visited the country of Nicaragua to volunteer in a variety of areas, all dealing with some kind of medical care. The idea for this trip came from seniors Gabe Holdwick and Adam Hull, after both of them visited Central America for medical mission trips with International Service Learning during the 2008-2009 school year. They decided it would be a good idea to start a similar program at AC. (Photo courtesy of Adam Hull)
A group of 15 Adrian College students traveled to Nicaragua for medical mission trip during winter break from December 26 to January 8. The group of students volunteered their time in a variety of areas, including working with physicians at walk-in clinics, nursing homes and hospitals.
This mission trip didn’t get started on its own though. Seniors Gabe Holdwick and Adam Hull got the idea after they went to Central America for medical mission trips with International Service Learning last school year.
“When I got back I talked with Gabe and we had such good experiences with it that we wanted other people to be able to do the same thing,” Hull said. “So that’s why we kind of organized the trip and got support from Adrian, which was one of the driving forces for us.”
Both Hull and Holdwick thought it would be a good idea for more AC students to go on the trip.
“We decided it would be a cool thing for more Adrian College students to do it,” Holdwick said. “Because of the kind of place Adrian is, with our social justice roots and that all people have intrinsic worth.”
In January of last year, Hull and Holdwick met with Marcia Boynton, the director of the Institute for Health Studies, and presented their proposal to her. They pursued it, and were successful in getting a class of 13 other people to go on the mission trip to Nicaragua with them, doing medical work.
While there, students worked in two different fields, five worked in the dental field working with the dental working on fillings, cleanings and extractions. Ten students worked in the medical field taking vitals, asking patients why they came in and formulating a hypothesis as to what was wrong with them. The professional doctors were helping the students along the way.
The students didn’t just take away medical experiences. They got to see what health care was like in another country.
“We got to observe in two hospitals, a city and their national children’s hospital,” Holdwick said. “We got to see how their health system works and what they do for their medicine. Both were government ran hospitals because they have a national health care system, and they are severely underfunded. They have a private hospital system as well, which more resembles U.S. hospitals, but they aren’t free. They have better doctors because they pay the doctors more. So we got to see how all of that works.”
It wasn’t all work though, students also got to do some sightseeing, including seeing the volcano, the lagoon and the beach.
Overall the trip was a success; students got to see what different countries medical systems have to offer and to work under the supervision of a professional doctor from another country.
“The whole Nicaragua experience taught me so much,” said senior Alemena Welker. “Not only about the medical field, but also about myself. Seeing how the people live down there and their culture really helped me get a handle on the kind of person I want to be and to really be appreciative of the opportunities I have in my life.”
Another trip is in the planning stage for December getting paperwork filed and everything ready to go again.