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An Immersive Lesson in Global Health

With support from President Sunil Kumar, 15 undergraduate students traveled to the Dominican Republic for a weeklong medical brigade with Tufts Timmy Global Health
News Staff | Tue, Sep 3, 2024

While many students choose to rest and refuel during school breaks, this spring, 15 Tufts undergraduates immersed themselves in a community in the Dominican Republic to learn more about global health.

Many of the students are members of Tufts Timmy Global Health, a chapter of Timmy Global Health, a nonprofit that aims to help communities meet their health care needs. The organization partners students and medical professionals with organizations in four countries to provide increased access to standard medical visits as well as clean water and nutritional food.

During the trip, the Tufts medical brigade partnered with Banelino, a Timmy Global Health community partner in Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, which is a rural area near the northwest Dominican-Haitian border. Banelino is a fair-trade association of banana farmers that invests in the local community in many ways, including the provision of medical care, which Tufts students supported. 

Elizabeth Marte, A25, is the president of the Tufts chapter and has been involved since she was a first-year. As an immigrant who was born in the Dominican Republic, this year’s medical brigade trip was especially important to her.

“When I was living in the Dominican Republic medical brigades volunteers used to go to my town,” Marte reflected. “So it was a full-circle moment for me to just be able to be the volunteer for people that are in the same position that I was in a few years back.”

“When I was living in the Dominican Republic medical brigades volunteers used to go to my town. So it was a full-circle moment for me to just be able to be the volunteer for people that are in the same position that I was in a few years back.”

Marte, like many of the students who traveled to Monte Cristi, faced financial barriers that would have precluded her from participating in the trip. So, she began advocating for the club, meeting with faculty and staff over the course of several months to secure funding for the trip. 

“The students in our club face a lot of financial hardships and wouldn’t have been able to pay for it on their own,” Marte said. “So, last summer, we started holding meetings with several departments at Tufts with little success. We even asked other clubs how they fund their service trips, and they said they were able to pay for it themselves. That was hard to hear.” 

After several months of unsuccessful meetings, Marte and Tufts Timmy Global Health found support in the Office of the President, which was impressed by Marte’s tenacity and dedication to global health. After meeting with the Office of the President and sharing a presentation deck on the club’s goals, Marte and Tufts Timmy received funding, which enabled Tufts Timmy students to participate in the medical brigade trip.

 “A Tufts education includes what students learn in the classroom as well in labs and studios, on athletic fields, from internships and much more,” Kumar said. “We will do all we can to ensure that if, as in this instance, students want to understand what it means to deliver care, even at a far distance from the Hill, they get the chance to have that experience.”

Many of the students who traveled hope to one day work in the medical field, whether as a physician, researcher, or global health professional. During the trip, the students learned hands-on from medical professionals who served as their supervisors during the trip. 

The Tufts students were paired with a pediatrician, a pharmacist, a nurse, and a nurse practitioner, all returning Timmy Global Health volunteers. For Johanna Friedes, A26, the downtime spent with the pharmacist is where she learned the most. 

“Working with the pharmacist was one of the most interesting things that I got to do there,” Friedes, an anthropology major on the pre-med track, reflected. “In the downtime, when we were unpacking certain medications, she would be quiz me and ask ‘do you know what this does? Do you know or understand the mechanisms that it acts on?’ It was really helpful to be able to understand what we were giving to people and why.”

When the students weren’t in clinics or preparing for community visits, they were taken on daily cultural immersion trips to learn more about the area in which they were working. For Abi Vixama, A24, it was a chance to contextualize what she learned in the classroom.

“In my sociology of food class, we talked about fair trade certifications around the world and cooperatives of consumer goods that are fair trade certified,” Vixama said.  “It was good to be able to better understand what fair-trade certification means and apply class concepts to real life.”

Tufts students visited the Monte Cristi salt mines, which are still in use, during a cultural immersion trip. Photo: Courtesy of Timmy Global Health

Many of the students plan to stay involved with Tufts Timmy Global Health in the future, whether that’s through one of the club’s three sub-committees, like the community service committee that partners with local nonprofits to support their efforts, or by taking part in another medical brigade. 

“I definitely would love to go again,” said Mikayla Cole, A25, who is studying clinical psychology, child studies, and dance. “But also at the same time, I would love for other people who didn't get the chance to go this year or people who are incoming freshmen to be able to experience this as well, because it's a great opportunity, especially for people who are interested in global health and health care disparities.”