Lending helping hands

Medical students and faculty serve on the school’s first medical service trip

More than 80 students, faculty and staff of the Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine (LUCOM) took a break from their summer vacations and teamed up for LUCOM’s first trip to Zacapa, Guatemala, from July 18-25. There they focused on providing quality medical help, building long-term relationships and sharing the hope of Jesus Christ.

Through a recent partnership with the organization Hope of Life International, the group traveled to this impoverished area for one week. During that time, they provided countless check-ups and distributed many needed vitamins and nutritional information, all while taking every opportunity to pray for their patients.

“Hope of Life International actually has several programs and partnerships with Liberty University already,” James Cook, LUCOM’s director of Medical Outreach and International Medicine, said. “And they built a hospital, so it makes sense to increase (the) partnership with Liberty University to add the medical component.”

Many student doctors who took part in this particular trip recently finished their first year of medical school and used the experience in Guatemala to further their learning. The real, hands-on experience revitalized their desire to pursue their degrees in medicine and left them wanting to return.

“An unintended benefit that we received from this was that ability for (the students) to enhance their confidence,” Cook said. “They learned a lot from attending physicians, and they learned a lot about giving care to those that are in need. But they also learned a lot about how to work together.”

Kaleigh Kenny, a second-year student doctor who participated in the trip, recalled the importance of giving hands-on care to the patients, as this is the type of care LUCOM focuses on teaching.

“Our medical school is an osteopathic school, so we know how to treat our patients hands-on (as the first approach). … ,” Kenny said. “We think that healing first comes from mind, body and spirit. So that was really useful down in Guatemala, having limited resources and not a lot of access to what we have here (at Liberty).”

As several students described their experiences in Guatemala, they demonstrated that their desire to help others goes far beyond medicine and other physical provisions.

“Any medical care that you give is temporary,” Josh Reynolds, a second-year LUCOM student doctor and participant of the trip, said. “But if you can give spiritual care and they can come into a relationship with Jesus, now they’re taken care of for eternity, so that’s really the goal.”

Another participant and second-year student doctor, Craig Mitcham, hoped that this group, and Liberty University, would be remembered as friends to the people of Zacapa. He hoped that the medical system there would mirror that of the United States, where citizens recognize their physicians and build intentional friendships with them.

“One thing that I thought was cool was that we were involved in a partnership,” Mitcham said. “These people are not only going to see us as people that come in and give them care, they’re going to see (us) as friends, so hopefully they’ll recognize faces. … It’s not just a professional relationship, it’s a friendship. … We’re actually trying to invest in certain people and stay with that people group long-term.”

Though students recognized that there would always be more care to provide, they left even more focus on how they could continue to help those in need.

“The hardest thing that I struggled with was feeling like we weren’t doing enough,” Stephanie Wesley, second-year LUCOM student, said. “It was kind of frustrating to see that we were so limited, … but at the same time, it was motivating for the future to see what we could do better next time. … A short-term impact is nice — (such as) giving someone vitamins for 30 days — but to make a longer-lasting impact is really what we want to do for our patients as physicians in the future. So we’re trying to start that now and trying to see how we can do that with every patient along the way.”

LUCOM is currently planning two trips back to Guatemala throughout this academic year. Through LUCOM’s new partnerships with Liberty University’s School of Nursing and School of Education, Cook hopes to bring between 150-200 participants on next summer’s trip.

For more information about LUCOM or future trips to Guatemala, visit www.liberty.edu/lucom/ or email inquiries to LUCOM@liberty.edu.

RITTER is a news reporter.