As a senior in high school, Revere graduate Morgan Leaventon began to look at different universities. The one school in particular that stood out to her was Duquesne University and their nursing program. The nursing program at Duquesne offered a trip for students to help people in Nicaragua.
From February 26 to March 8, Leaventon was able to study and nurse people in Nicaragua. Duquesne University has had a partnership with La Universidad Politecnica de Nicaragua (UPOLI) for 20 years. This partnership allows the nursing students from both universities to come together and help people in Nicaragua.
Before Leaventon could leave for Nicaragua, she had to complete a few prerequisites.
“We had to go to a few meetings and they prepared us. We had to study what the situation was there, the economy, why we’re going there [and] what we want to accomplish there,” Leaventon said.
As part of the program, each nursing student is assigned to a family. Each student teaches his or her family about hygienic practices and healthy habits. Leaventon described her family, and how she helped them.
“My family was a 21 year old girl and she had a 5 year old. She was pregnant and she had a parasite. We think she got it from the trash, but I think she got it from the water. We do a lot of environmental things too. We look at their house and we see what affects their house. We [taught them] that you should try to take your trash out or put it in the bin. We got them another water barrel because there was a little hole in it and the mosquitoes lay eggs in it. And the next thing was they had one broom they were using inside and outside and the child [had] asthma but it’s environmentally induced asthma. So, we taught them to use one broom for inside and one for outside,” Leaventon said.
Besides working with a family, Leaventon worked with people outside of the family and taught many people in Nicaragua healthy habits.
“We volunteered at a clinic so I did pediatric and I did women’s health. We did pediatric screenings. We did 78 screenings on children. That includes eyes, ears, mouth, vice checks, blood pressure, heart rate, and height and weight. We found that most were underweight and malnourished,” Leaventon said.
Leaventon also taught her family about warning signs that they should look for. She explained to the family what kind of signs show that she is dehydrated, or anything that can be harmful to her family’s baby.
“Since my patient was pregnant, I helped her with some prenatal care. Since she had a parasite, we did some teaching on what warning signs [she should look for like] the warning signs of dehydration because she can’t take medicine because she was between a certain period where it’s harmful to the baby,” Leaventon said.
Kerri Pavlik, a nursing student at Duquesne, also participated in the program at Nicaragua. The students found research and were able to utilize their research to get the families the necessities that they need. She described what the students did with the research that they received.
“With our findings, we educated and provided recommendations in areas that were needed. We compiled all the heights and weights of the school aged children and conducted a research study comparing the statistics in Nicaragua to those of the children in the US. We found that many of the children in Nicaragua are underweight and below the US growth curve for their age group. … After discussing concerns and needs of the family members we were able to gather items and supplies they might need, such as personal hygiene items, food, vitamins, medications, beds, and clothing. On the last day of our trip we delivered these items to our families and they were forever grateful,” Pavlik said.
Leah Cunningham is the assistant dean of student services for the Duqesne University School of Nursing. She explained the goals the students had in mind for the program.
“The goal is to promote health in a sustainable way. We provide the families with education and resources to help them promote their health for the long term,” Cunningham said.
The trip to Nicaragua made Leaventon want travel more as a nurse. This trip to Nicaragua is her third study abroad trip and she is planning on visiting more places around the world. She is planning on backpacking through Europe this summer.