All 21 students stayed in a four-story house with a host family, along with Ball and consulting nurse Kristi Libby. Living quarters were a bit cozy, and warm water for showers didn’t last long with such a large group, but the students didn’t mind; they were there to help, and eager to do so.
For the first four days, the group would go to a different part of the region to provide health services. The lines of patients were long, with many walking several hours to get there. As the students learned, the nearest hospital in these communities was hours away and even basic check-ups were rare for the residents.
“When I learned about that, I was so surprised,” said Ravnit Sran, a nursing student in his junior year. “On our first day, people actually came from faraway places just to be seen for a little bit of medication. They were so appreciative.”
While many Peruvians speak Spanish, some speak the traditional language of the Incans of Quechua, so even students who spoke Spanish had to learn how to give care in a language they don’t speak. Lopez-Mendoza recalled a time she was struggling to talk with a patient who spoke Quechua when a woman waiting in line to be treated came up to help her translate.
“That really stuck with me,” Lopez-Mendoza said. “They’re there to get help and they’re helping us as well. That community is really tight-knit, and they’re so grateful for the services we were providing. Although it may not be a lot for us, it was a lot for them.”
From their host house, the students had to travel anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours each way to get to the neighboring communities. The roads were bumpy, and Lopez-Mendoza was one of a handful in the group who would get motion sickness from the journey.
“The people made the trip worth it,” she said. “Once I got there, I was just ready to go ahead and help, all that sickness was just gone. They’re really, really great people.”
Though they enjoyed the experience of helping people in need, students faced a culture shock upon realizing the disparity in health care. At the end of each long day, they would take time to go over what they had seen and how to make sense of it.
“It’s very important to do debriefing because they are going to see things that are very impactful that they don’t know what to do with,” Ball explained. “It’s different knowing there are poor people versus seeing and interacting with poor people.”
Even in America, nurses will see a similar disparity in health care among certain communities, so grasping the importance of culturally competent care was just as vital a part of the trip as getting practical experience was.
“I feel like this experience will impact my nursing career because this trip really made me become even more of an advocate for patients,” Lopez-Mendoza said. “This brought out a side of me I didn’t really know I had. I’m usually a little quiet, but there I had to use my voice and speak up and make sure that patients are getting appropriate care.”
For Sran, the experience was essential in confirming he was on the right career path.
“I just went into nursing because everyone was doing it and my family was kind of pushing me,” Sran said. “But now after seeing that, all the difference we made doing little things like giving them vitamins or checking their temperature, I definitely want to do this. Now I have a purpose of what I want to do and what kind of nurse I want to be.”