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Medical Students Reach Out Through Project CURA

When it came to choosing between the Creighton University School of Medicine and four or five other schools, the promise of a trip to a developing nation helped seal the deal for Christopher Aldrich of Spokane, Wash.

“Creighton medical school’s mission, to serve others, was a big selling point,” said Aldrich, now in his second year of medical school. This past summer, he led a group of nine fellow first-year medical students on a health service trip to Ghana as part Creighton Medical School United in Relief Assistance, known as Project CURA.

The group spent three weeks in this west African coastal nation of about 23 million. Working with local nurses in village health clinics, Creighton students helped provide basic medical care, diagnose conditions and dispense medicines. Malaria, a leading cause of death and disease in many developing countries, was the most common problem. Patients with high blood pressure and youngsters with machete wounds from cutting grass were also common. On a joyful note, students also witnessed or participated in two at-home births, using no anesthetic. They also helped with construction projects and taught English.

“Your contact with patients is limited in the first year of medical school. This (Project CURA) helps us correlate what we learned in class and reminds us of why we are in medical school,” Aldrich said.

But patient care is only part of the lesson learned. Project CURA participants also leave with real-life lessons in humility and gratitude.

”The (Ghana) houses are made of clay and dirt with tin roofs, and the floors are dirt or cement. …They have no running water (in the houses); goats and chickens run loose throughout the village,” Aldrich noted.  “But the attitude of the people, given their hard lives, is surprising. They are a very friendly, happy and diverse population with many tribes and languages.”

Ghana is the latest nation to join an annual list of trips made by volunteers with Project CURA, a program founded and run by first-year Creighton medical students since 2001 to provide health education and primary prevention in medically underserved areas around the globe. The nonprofit group is rooted in the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis or “care of the entire person.”

Forty-eight students spent several weeks this summer in Romania (trip leader Ann Packard), Peru (Betsy Healy, Meagan McCarthy), India (Meghan Scheibe) and Southeast Asia (Spencer Rusin) as well as Ghana. Pine Ridge Native American Reservation (Michael Long) in South Dakota is a regular destination point during spring break.

How the countries are selected varies. Ghana was a last-minute addition this year after a trip to Kenya was deemed too dangerous due to political unrest. For Ghana, Project CURA quickly partnered with Global Volunteers, a private nonprofit organization that works to establish mutual understanding between people of diverse cultures through short-term volunteers.

Romania was added two years ago at the urging of Tim Jeffries, BA’05, a Peace Corps volunteer, who works as an English teacher and school counselor in that country. He had visited a community hospital with his students for a service project and realized the hospital needed some help.

“I have a very good friend who had gone to India through CURA, and I felt like it would be a good fit,” Jeffries said. Today, Jeffries’ role “is helping to coordinate the logistics … getting a hold of people at (Romanian) organizations, talking to doctors, and figuring out what we can do.”

Logistics are only part of the challenge. Trip leaders and others begin planning months in advanced organizing teams, making travel and housing arrangements, determining needed immunizations for volunteers, collecting donated medical supplies, fundraising, and more.

“Service projects are really a strong point for the School of Medicine,” said Meghan Scheibe, 2008 India trip leader. “You share new perspectives on health and living and hope that maybe you make a difference.”

Michael Kavan, Ph.D., associate dean for student affairs, agrees. His office supports and advises student-run efforts such as Project CURA and the Magis Clinic, which offers free health care to the homeless and underserved populations in Omaha.

“These programs and other service-learning projects in the Jesuit tradition are attractive to Creighton medical students with a passion to help others – exactly what we want from our next generation of physicians,” he said.