Team Nursing/Pharmacy
from Pharmacy Faculty Members
Elisa Greene & Edgar Diaz-Cruz, and
Nursing Faculty Member Jamie Adam

Our team returned safely to Nashville just before midnight last night with exhausted, yet fulfilled students and faculty. This unique Springbreak experience gave students an incredible opportunity to be immersed not only as American students in the Guatemalan culture, but also as an inter-professional healthcare team. Nursing, OT, Pharmacy students and a student majoring in Communications, learned how to leverage each other’s strengths to provide quality care to the people of Guatemala. Within the majors, students had various degrees of experience. Graduate students were mentoring undergraduates, seniors were mentoring freshman, and faculty were facilitating meaningful inter-professional learning experiences.

As most international trips go, students and faculty were challenged to be flexible about their own expectations and use the unexpected as “teachable moments.” In addition, our team had to learn to manage the people’s expectations of what we could provide. There was much we could offer, but in some cases, we had to acknowledge our own limitations. Regardless of whether we could identify a problem or a need, our patient might not be able to afford a physician or the medications needed.

These concerns, though raised in the context of this trip to Guatemala, reflect the concerns of many teams who perform medical missions abroad. The questions of “now what?” and “who will follow-up when we are gone?” burden those seeking to make a lasting difference in cultures with little access to care. It was this awareness that reminded us of how important it is that we serve as advocates. We visited local pharmacies to see what medications were available, and researched cost and accessibility. In addition, our local contact connected us with a local physician that is willing to follow-up with our most complicated cases free of charge.

The students are now returning home with newfound respect for their own blessings, awareness of the needs around them, and eagerness to continue meaningful connections. We are reminded of our prayer from the beginning, “May we be Your hands and feet, Lord, and know that with You all things are possible.”