
Traveling to a new country for study abroad gave eight respiratory therapy students the chance to impact the lives of strangers in a rural Caribbean village. Previously, RT students traveled to Nicaragua to study and provide health care to coffee farmers and their families. But civil unrest made that country too risky for the students, and the team sought a new option.
Comunidad Connect, a non-profit founded and operated by Georgia State University School of Social Work alumnus Jon Thompson, placed the student team in the Dominican Republic. There, the group received a hero’s welcome from the community with a roasted a pig and chicken and a local dance in colorful traditional clothing as entertainment, a welcome most remarkable due to the extreme poverty of the region. Residents, some of whom work in the nearby agricultural fields, live in small wooden shacks, many with dirt floors and little electricity and no running water.
“The people were so gracious,” said Doug Gardenhire, chair of RT and faculty lead for the study abroad team.
The RT students went to the DR to complete a construction mission laying concrete floors in some of the residents’ homes and to provide lung health checks. The students funded the construction materials with their study abroad fees and provided the labor. In the end, they were able to complete floors in seven of the homes, including adding color to the concrete for a splash of style. Additionally, the students were able to purchase a gas stove for one family of eleven.
“The coolest part of this trip was making the concrete floor! Mixing sand and cement was no doubt hard work, and I will probably never do it again,” said Chi-Hsiang Shih, an international master’s RT exchange student from Taipei Medical University. “Through the process, I was able to build the relationship with the residents and the workers even we spoke different languages.”
Providing lung health checks and learning about local health care also occupied much of the trip. The student visited local hospitals to see DR healthcare up close.
“The students were able to visit with the neonatologists at one hospital, touring the NICU and observing newborn’s receiving mechanical ventilation. They were exposed to using less equipment than we have in the U.S. and relying on their education to date,” said Gardenhire. The students also visited the adult ICU and pediatric wards to observe treatment.
Out in the rural community, students checked residents’ oxygen and carbon monoxide levels and lung function. They expected to find a high incidence of smoking but did not. A resident stated that it was a Christian community which frowned on smoking and drinking. Gardenhire and the team collected data to analyze in comparison to previous and future trips.
Interaction with the community gave the student team more opportunities to make an impact. During the checks, they discovered that several residents had hypertension and one man, in particular, had dangerously high blood pressure. The team purchased the necessary blood pressure medication at the local pharmacy and visited him the next day.
“As you can imagine, he was elated that the team returned and thought to help him,” said Gardenhire.
Students also met with the local community health care advocates to discuss the issues of asthma, COPD, smoking and carbon monoxide, allowing them to share knowledge with those best able to spread it in the community. Finally, the students educated school children about the dangers of smoking and open flame stove safety as many of the homes feature either an outdoor stove “fagun” or an indoor charcoal stove. Propane-powered gas stoves are more rare and electric stoves, nonexistent. The team quizzed the children on what they had learned and gave out small prizes.
“I loved the interaction with the community and workers,” said Elder Palacios, undergraduate RT student. “Most of the families have limited resources, and I enjoyed that we found ways to help them without them having to change their lifestyle.”
Cultural experiences rounded out the trip with students enjoying their host town of Sosua and meeting with a well-known local artisan for the opportunity to purchase artwork in memory of their experiences.
Tyleene Brown highly recommended the experience for future RT students.
“I would tell someone who has never been on a study abroad trip to really try and immerse themselves completely into the culture, learn as much as possible, and make the most out of the experience because it is one that will stick with you forever,” she said.