March 19, 2014
Guatemala trip is life-changing for Belmont pharmacy students
By Mignonne Bryant
| mbryant@tennessean.com
In a Guatemalan hotel, 23-year-old Belmont University student Gena Curl carefully unpacked all that she had brought from Nashville. A wave of doubts swept across her mind: “Am I going to be able to do this? I’m by myself in the pharmacy. Can I handle this?” Curl knew no one in this foreign place and barely spoke the local language, but the experience changed her life forever.
In October 2013, Curl traveled to Guatemala City as a fourth-year pharmacy student to provide free services at the Moore Pediatric Surgery Center — an opportunity offered by Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy, which partners with the Shalom Foundation and BUCOP Medical Missions.
According to Phil Johnston, dean of the pharmacy school at Belmont, roughly 25 students go each year to one of two locations: the surgery center in Guatemala City or a clinic on a coffee plantation in Antigua. Both locations are enabled by the Shalom Foundation. The building in Guatemala was remodeled and created as a surgery center by people from Nashville.