BU World: CAS Student Mobilizes Health-Care Volunteers for Honduras
BU team traveled to Central America in January
Click above to view images from Tara O’Donohue’s trip to Honduras with the BU chapter of Global Medical Brigades.
Boston University extends far beyond the Charles River Campus — from students and alums studying overseas to faculty research in developing countries. This week, we look at BU’s presence — in scholarship and in service — around the world.
While many students spent early January taking a much-needed break from papers and exams, Tara O’Donohue (CAS’09) was busy with work of a different sort: leading a team of BU-affiliated medical volunteers to Honduras to treat more than 1,400 people in communities with limited access to medicine.
“We treated every patient with antiparasite medicine and vitamins and also gave a lot of people antifungals and pain medicine for their various problems,” she says. “The people were so gracious — we had so many wonderful experiences.”
The BU group went to Honduras under the auspices of Global Medical Brigades, an international network of university clubs and volunteer groups that travel to developing countries to offer health care. O’Donohue first heard about the organization as a sophomore, and she spent much of 2007 recruiting the 24 undergraduates and 6 medical professionals who eventually made the trip.
The team spent eight days in the Central American country, setting up brigades in four different villages. It marked BU’s first involvement with Global Medical Brigades, but there is more on the horizon — O’Donohue is already preparing for another trip in May.
“I’m hoping to be a doctor one day and am particularly interested in international medicine, so I would absolutely love to travel back with the brigade,” she says. “The trip taught me to really be appreciative of health care in this country.”
Edward Brown can be reached at ebrown@bu.edu.
This story originally ran February 26, 2008.
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