Colin (left) and Sarah Price, members of the ACPHS Class of 2002, were part of a team of health care professionals who went on a one-week mission to the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
and put us in contact with the leader and president of the organization.” The Prices’s were part of a team of medical professionals that included a dentist, lab team, two nurses, and a physician from California. They stayed at a hotel in Higuay in central Dominican Republic, about an hour ride by car to their worksite. On the first day, Colin and Sarah collected and organized all the drugs so they knew what they had available to them. “Each medical mission brings and leaves behind medications and supplies,” Colin says. “We also brought and shipped stuff down so it was important to lay it all out and be prepared in order to do our jobs and help people as effectively as possible.” After driving miles and miles through sugar plantations, they came across batays, or corporately owned villages that were built in the middle of the sugar plantations. “We set up clinics in small vacant concrete chapels there,” he says. “Our goal was to de-worm everyone with oral medication. It was a standard protocol. Every child who came through to be seen for something, and who was old enough, was given a tablet in their mouth.”
It was pretty chaotic at times. “There were people everywhere outside the chapel, looking in and congregating. We had to focus on the children and the elderly who were really in pain and could hardly walk,” says Colin.
“These people needed medical care, sanitation, and running water, yet they radiated happiness just because we gave them attention and provided them with the most basic care.” A patient would get directed to either the dentist or the doctor upon arrival. “The dentist’s job was pretty straightforward,” Colin says. “The physician, working through translators, found it a lot harder because he didn’t completely know what drugs we had. Many times he would just send us symptoms, and we would be responsible for treating them.”
lenol and ibuprofen for pain were primarily what made up the couple hundred prescriptions that passed through the pharmacy each day. “Otherwise, we just prescribed a lot of hope and attention,” Colin explains. “People can be so happy when they have so little. These people needed medical care, sanitation, and running water, yet they radiated happiness just because we gave them attention and provided them with the most basic care. They were so appreciative.” Colin and Sarah insist that they were the ones who were changed and humbled by the experience. “This trip shaped us into who we are today, individually and as a couple,” says Sarah. “It was extremely rewarding for me to be a part of a mission to help people in need of medical care, using my education and working together with my husband. Many of these people live in pain and discomfort because they do not have access to medical care, nor are they educated on proper hygiene practices. It may seem like basic care to us, but to them it makes their quality of life so much better.”
A high volume of vitamins, antifungals for ringworm, antibiotics for infection, and Ty-
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