Occupational And Physical Therapy Departments Serve Guatemala
The University of South Dakota School of Health Sciences’ Departments of Physical and Occupational Therapy organized a March trip to Guatemala, where they participated in therapy clinics and immersed themselves in cultural experiences.
The service trip, made annually by the physical therapy and occupational therapy departments, provides students an opportunity to gain new clinical perspectives and experience global conditions by providing evaluations under the supervision of professional physical therapists (PTs) and occupational therapists (OTs).
The 2023 trip involved four PT students, 12 OT students and three faculty members, as well as students from USD’s speech language pathology and audiology programs, traveling to the most populous country in Central America.
"This immersion allows students to experience OT in a different context,” said Whitney Lucas Molitor, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy. “The focus of the preparation for the course is cultural humility. Through learning about differences and similarities cross-culturally, students gain a broader world view.”
Each day, students were asked to write reflections that tied into the trip’s learning objectives, including articulating how service learning contributes to growth, reflecting on the benefits of cultural immersion in health care professions, and understanding the role effective communication can play in therapy.
“From the trip, I learned the major disparities in health care in developing countries,” shared Abby Myers, a student physical therapist in the Class of 2024. “Though they have more obstacles to work around, the health care workers truly give their all every day to help their patients and make the community a more inclusive environment.”
“It’s good to see our embedded students witness the impact that Guatemalan PTs, OTs, SLPs, physicians, dentists and public health agents are having in their communities,” said Patti Berg-Poppe, Ph.D., trip leader and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy. “It helps them realize there are so many needs in this area of the world. They grow to understand that compassion, a commitment to improve access to care, and the influence of acceptance can have a big impact, even in under-resourced areas of the world.”