I
n the spring of 1993, a young Navajo woman was
trip. “We’ve been taking students on cultural immersion
rushed to the hospital with mysterious pulmonary
trips for 10 years now,” he said. “It helps them with their
symptoms. Otherwise fit and healthy, she was gasping
cultural competence. Scranton is so homogenous, it’s
for breath and literally drowning in her own fluids.
important for students to learn that their own culture is
When others fell ill — all young, healthy people dying
not superior, it’s just different.”
of acute respiratory failure — the CDC was called to the
DPT alumna Dianna Holdren ’11, who participated
Four Corners region formed by Arizona, New Mexico,
in the 2013 trip, agrees. “I still think of this trip and the
Colorado and Utah. When the esteemed scientists
experiences from it often. My eyes were opened to a
arrived, the Navajo’s medicine man asked to confer with
very different way of life. I had to keep reminding myself
them. It had been an unusually wet spring in the Four
that I was still in the U.S.,” she said.
Corners and the medicine man was sure the resultant
Dr. Sanko has taken students to El Salvador and
explosion in the mouse population was unhealthy.
Mexico, but finds the experience with the Navajo people
Although the CDC refused to see him, in time they
just as rich in cultural differences and educational
found the culprit he wanted to warn them about — deer
rewards, without the need for a passport. On the trip,
mice carrying a hantavirus.
students observed at St. Michael’s School for Special
For John Sanko, Ed.D, PT, associate professor and
Education in Window Rock, Ariz., where several
chair of the Physical Therapy Department, this story
Scranton alumni have volunteered. PT alum Kate Fawls
sums up just about everything he wants his PT and OT
DPT ’12 has acted as a consultant since her days there as
students to learn when they take part in his annual service
a Mercy Corps volunteer. OT alum Bridget Marrine ’10, G’11 also spent a year there with Mercy Corps.
LEFT: DPT student Dianna Holdren works with a student at St.
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THE SCRANTON JOURN A L
Michael’s School for Special Education in St. Michael’s, Ariz. RIGHT: Dr. John Sanko, seen standing, with DPT students and faculty at Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Nation in Arizona.