After reviewing the applications, eight undergraduates, including Pladsen and two graduate nurse practitioner students, were selected to participate in the service trip. Beginning this past fall, the students met with Spanish professor Kathy Lee to work on their Spanish language skills. During these meetings, students would practice Spanish medical vocabulary, conduct mock patient interviews in Spanish, and discuss cultural issues in Nicaragua. The students also developed their educational health teaching projects. These posters and handouts, written in Spanish, detailed basic aspects of healthy living in various areas, and were presented during the trip to community health promoters.
To finance the trip, each student was asked to raise $1,000. Letter-writing campaigns, restaurant fundraisers, bake sales, and independent donations were used to raise money for the trip. In addition, pharmaceutical companies donated medication for the group to deliver to the Nicaraguan community.
Pladsen and others stayed in the Center For Global Education in Managua. Each morning, the students would work for four hours in the Nueva Vida Clinic, a resettlement community located in the outskirts of the city. In the afternoon, they toured various public health sites, a public health hospital where the nurse to patient ratio is an astounding 30:1.
Students' work in the clinic varied. While the two graduate students treated patients directly, the eight undergraduates triaged patients, stocked shelves, sorted files, filled medications, and spoke to community members.
Pladsen observed that starvation was the root cause of the majority of health problems. Oftentimes the adults would complain of aches and pains that they thought resulted from hard labor but really were worsened by lack of food. Many children were riddled with infection; because they lacked proper nutrients, their immune systems were compromised.
Nursing student Jennifer Cundall, CSON '07 also spoke of the terrible state of affairs she witnessed in Nicaragua. "The conditions were pretty grim. It is third world poverty. There is often no running water because it runs on electricity and often that is turned off. The houses are constructed out of scrap metal and whatever other materials families can come by," said Cundall.
Spring Break
