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Trent/Fleming Nursing Students Engage with Friends of Honduran Children

Setting up Primary Healthcare in Remote Villages

Trent/Fleming Nursing Students Engage with Friends of Honduran Children
Trent/Fleming Nursing Students Engage with Friends of Honduran Children

A Showcase Magazine Feature: http://www.trentu.ca/showcase/

When Dr. Patti Lynn Tracey joined the faculty in the Trent/Fleming nursing program, she brought with her the Friends of Honduran Children – an organization she had been working with for fourteen years.

In October 2012, she took eighteen nursing students to Honduras, where they took part in a variety of community health projects. In collaboration with logistics workers familiar with the needs of rural regions, Professor Tracey and her team travel to remote villages and set up makeshift primary healthcare facilities twice per year.

Each short-term medical mission is two weeks, mobilizing a multi-disciplinary team of doctors and nurses, pharmacists, dentists and nursing students. A twentyperson team is set up with Honduran interpreters and logistics people in small villages in churches or schools.

The multidisciplinary team travels to Honduran sites in February and then, the following October, students from the nursing program take part in Honduran field placements – comprised in part by a promotional and educational project around health teaching. Areas such as oral hygiene and pre-natal health are among the areas addressed during the placement.

In the Wake of Global Devastation

Professor Tracey’s research is primarily concerned with looking at the role and impact of short-term medical missions in the rural regions of Honduras. “For me, it’s about trying to be accountable in the work we do in Honduras,” she says. “International experiences such as the community nursing placement in Honduras are beneficial for students to increase their understanding of the influence of culture on health, to practice with diverse populations and to foster a global perspective.  International experiences and partnerships are powerful mechanisms to engage the next generation of nurses.”

The massive damage and death toll caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 destroyed the national infrastructure and isolated cities and small villages, leaving thousands of families homeless, unemployed, and with little to no source of income. The World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization provide assistance to a variety of smaller grass roots programs.

Logistics workers from these larger groups assist with the Trent/Fleming program in the early stages where they identify isolated villages in need and then put together nursing teams for February or October visits based on village needs. Friends of Honduran Children and the relatively recent involvement by Trent/Fleming contribute significantly to an ongoing effort to assist in the wake ofglobal devastation.

Posted on Thursday, April 11, 2013.

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