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The Program for Interdisciplinary Education has recently added a new dimension to our office. We are now working with the University of Florida students who coordinate the Global Health Spring Break trips each year. Last year the students were able to serve 8500 patients in three different countries. Five trips have been developed over the last ten years. They are coordinated primarily by the students and are interdisciplinary in nature, including medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing, audiology, public health and veterinary students. Each trip has a multidisciplinary team of faculty that supervises the students and provides services to the patients. Each trip is uniquely different. DR Help is a trip comprised of medical, nursing and pharmacy students. They serve the villages and surrounding rural mountain town of Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic. During the week they see over 1000 patients. Project HAITI, is the oldest global health outreach trip serving the people of Haiti for 10 years. In the past few years they have not been allowed to enter Haiti but have set up clinics on the border of Dominican Republic and Haiti and provide medical outreach to Haitian and Dominican patients in need. Project HEAL travels to Ecuador and treats over 1000 indigenous patients. They work in the mountains and also in the rain forests providing care and also work with students from the university in Ecuador. Project Yucatan travels to Merida in Mexico. They provide care to over 2000 underserved Mayan patients in local communities. They have a relationship with the local medical school in Mexico and work with them closely. This trip also includes Audiology students and faculty they provide hearing tests to several school age children. DR SALUD travels to San Francisco de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. They work with the Dominican Republic medical students and visit urban and rural sites. They serve over 2500 patient within the week. A College of Medicine grant allowed three qualitative researchers and three translators to accompany the students on three of the trips this year. The purpose of the grant was to conduct qualitative research and to determine the community's needs and how the students could develop sustainable projects in the communities that are being served. Patients, students, faculty and key informants from the community were interviewed and asked for their views and perspectives of the global health trips. It was agreed by all that the relationship s and service that the University of Florida students and faculty provide are greatly appreciated and a wonderful experience for all those involved. APHA Presentation addressed by Rhondda F. Waddell, Ph.D., LCSW and Gina Murray, MHC, LMHC. Surveys: News: Med students help indigent populations through 'missions' |
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