|
The student-run organization plans to take drugs, medical
equipment, and health care to Haiti. “As soon the students heard
about the earthquake you would have thought they would have been
concerned about still going on the trip, but the reaction was
the total opposite,” says Rosita Iordanova, a second-year
medical student. “The students are even more motivated to go to
Haiti and make a difference in people’s lives.”
The nonprofit WHSO is seeking donations of medications,
vitamins, condoms, pregnancy test kits, blood pressure cuffs and
blood sugar measuring kits. Tax-deductible monetary donations
will assist the group in purchasing additional supplies and
equipment, and can be made at
http://www.waynewhso.org/page31/page31.html.
This school year, WHSO student groups from the School of
Medicine will also travel to Belize (Feb. 28-March 7), Costa
Rica (Feb. 25-March 7), and Ecuador (March 20-28). A group went
to Nicaragua in December.
About
90 students in all will take part in the medical missions. The
trips are typically staffed by 20 first- and second-year
students, two fourth-year students and a physician.
The groups customarily remain on the missions for seven to 10
days.
The WHSO has steadily increased in membership since its
formation four years ago, and is now one of the largest student
organizations at the School of Medicine.
“These students, and the faculty who assist them in these trips,
deserve a tremendous amount of admiration for these missions,”
says Valerie Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., interim dean
of the School of Medicine. “They bring much-needed care to
remote villages and towns, and in return they get a real
education into how a substantial segment of the world’s
population lives without adequate health care. I hope that
everyone who can will contribute to these missions.”
|
