PHHP International Trips 2007
Audiology
The UF student chapter of the National Association of Future Doctors of Audiology and faculty in the department of communicative disorders recently completed their fifth annual Project Yucatan mission to Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. The UF group collaborates with the Universidad Autonoma de Yucateca medical school and Asociacion Yucateca Pro-Deficiente Auditivo a local organization established by parents of children who are deaf to provide hearing services and rehabilitation. The students and faculty involved in Project Yucatan administered audiologic testing to approximately 400 individuals, primarily children and inspected hearing aids for repairs and made impressions for replacement ear molds.
Physical Therapy
Members of the College of Public Health and Health Professions’ physical therapy department presented information on the management of patients with low back pain to local area clinicians and fifth year students at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua in Managua, the nation’s capital, This is the UF group’s fifth visit to Nicaragua to provide information on current physical therapy techniques and treatments. Limited access to continuing education and Spanish language textbooks has put the Nicaraguan physical therapy curriculum 10 to 15 years out of date.
Public Health
Master of Public Health students led by Clinical Associate Professor Alba Amaya-Burns, M.D., visited urban and rural areas in El Salvador to assess the health needs of the most disadvantaged groups in the country. The group met with public health leaders at the local, national and international levels; distributed medical supplies, including $13,000 worth of medications donated by Schering-Plough; and traveled to some of the most remote villages in El Salvador. Students collected information on issues in maternal, infant and child health, and infectious diseases and environmental health, with a goal of developing interventions for their next trip to El Salvador in 2008. Among the programs they’re exploring are behavior change interventions to prevent and control respiratory, diarrheal and eye infections, three of the country’s top health problems; strategies to promote pre-natal care; and education on creative re-use of plastic containers to enhance the current waste-management project in Perquin, Morazán.
