Posted: 5/8/2009
An undergraduate student group from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) travels to Haiti this month to provide health education, outreach, screening, and other care to children and adults in this impoverished nation.
The trip is part of their clinical education, and students work with the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF) in a continuing effort. JHUSON assistant professor Sara L. Groves, DrPH, APRN, will lead students on this trip where they will work alongside Haitian healthcare providers. “The students are challenged to rely on basic nursing skills, coupled with critical thinking and problem-solving in dealing with the realities of such a low resource country,” says Groves. While there, students will share and learn different approaches to health and illness in a program that touches over 200,000 people in southwestern Haiti. Undergraduate student Kristen Grenon, in the accelerated class of 2009 adds, “My goals for Haiti include not only providing healthcare and education, but taking away the skills of working in a third world country in the capacity of a nurse.”
SON students are helping to raise funds for needed health care supplies on this trip, which will help the HHF, who has even fewer resources with the economic downturn. “The need for help is even more critical now,” says Kayte Williams, also an undergraduate nursing student in the accelerated class of 2009, “because the Haitian Health Foundation has even less funds this year for basic supplies such as vitamins and lab equipment.” The students are using Givezooks, a new JHUSON online tool that connects organizations and individuals. All funds donated will go directly to help offset costs for this Haitian clinical experience. Visit the SON Givezooks’ webpage to donate before the students depart for Haiti on May 23.