One Year. One Physical Therapist in Trujillo, Peru.

Combining passions of global public health with travel and cultural immersion... With the help of the Catholic Medical Mission Board, I was afforded the opportunity to live outside of Trujillo, Peru for one year's time (2010-2011). Check out old posts about my experiences as a PT working in hospitals, a school, an outpatient clinic, doing research/community based rehabilitation, and a little teaching too. And my experiences with an entire calendar year of holidays, cultural customs and new culinary experiences!

I make it back about once a year with university students/CMMB projects, so I will periodically provide updates :)

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A Triangular Team, and a TV interview!

Regis and ALAS Peruanas students collaborate
One of the largest goals in our 2013 trip was to build the relationship between Regis University's DPT program, CMMB, and the local PT school "Universidad ALAS Peruanas." The last few years we've had short meetings in the itinerary, but this year we were thrilled to see the relationships really take off! Regis students spent a few days with the ALAS students working together in clinic and in the community doing home visits. We spent an afternoon teaching and learning from eachother on campus, partnered up local students with Regis students, and even had a social dinner and night out dancing at El Estribo!

This year we made things "official" with a formal partnership contract signed between Regis and the local school. On top of that, ALAS signed an agreement with CMMB committing their PT students (who are in a community based rehabilitation course offered once a year) to spend a semester volunteering to conduct home visits for CMMB's public health project "Rehabilitacion con Esperanza!" I was beyond excited to see the effects of this triangular team, and to know that the kids/families and CMMB will be receiving more local resources. And we discussed ways to strengthen the relationship throughout the year, via ideas like online learning/curriculum sharing, faculty conferences and campus teleconferences highlighting patient case studies.

Who would've thought that one little conversation with one doctor 3 years ago would snowball into where we are today?! I hope we only continue to build on these bridges in years to come!

Part of being friends with the university director means that you also get roped into other activities... like speaking live on national TV on a very short notice (and in a foreign language!!!) Never thought my first TV interview would be in Spanish, but I survived, haha! (My family and friends who saw it said that they understood me perfectly.. I think they were just being nice!)

TV interview with Yesenia Salinas, director of ALAS Peruanas

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