Short-term service trips and the interprofessional team: a perspective from Honduras

Abstract

Short-term service trips from the USA annually spend over $250 million dollars to provide healthcare to individuals in developing nations. These trips often uniquely define goals as related to changes in the host population and overlook the valuable benefits potentially incurred by the trip volunteers. The Honduras Outreach Medical Brigada Relief Effort utilizes an interprofessional team approach to develop the dual goals of improving health and quality of life in host communities and improving interprofessional teamwork values and skills among participants. This article outlines details of this program, describes on-going evaluation work and discusses the interprofessional implications from this project.

Rural Medical and Surgical Outreach Mission: Experience of International College of Surgeons (The Nigerian National Section)

“…Free medical mission is a recognized strategy for extending quality healthcare to underserved communities and developing countries. [7][8][9] In the case under review, an interprofessional team was formed for the effective administration of the program. This was the experience of other workers in Honduras.…”

“…This was the experience of other workers in Honduras. 9 The nonclinical participants carrying out nonclinical assignments removed a lot of distress and distraction from the clinicians. Accommodation close to the base hospital for resource persons enhanced discipline and team spirit.…”

“…The benefits of skills transfer, training, community collaboration, and appropriate referrals were noteworthy and similar to previous reports. 8,9,12 The role of pathologists and relevant laboratory scientists in this mission is complementary. Other workers have emphasized this relevance in the practice of medicine.…”

“…Vanderwielen et al working in the United States of America (USA) and Honduras have discussed the benefits of such collaboration. 8,9 This report aims to share experience in the role of International College of Surgeons (ICS; the Nigerian National Section) working in collaboration with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in a medical and rural surgical outreach mission.…”

Design of a service project that provides a model for interprofessional collaboration and layered learning within the refugee and asylum seeker community

“…Medical service trips such as these have long been a source of valued interprofessional education across disciplines, adding to and enhancing traditional educational strategies for interprofessional collaboration (VanderWielen et al, 2015;Fitzgerald et al, 2018;Elmore et al, 2019). The interdisciplinary team with nursing students provided valuable learning opportunities to pharmacy students that paralleled IPE previously experienced in the classroom and experiential education.…”