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Developing Whole Leaders for the whole World

Four Life-Changing Weeks: ORU's College of Nursing Continues Healing Efforts Abroad

nursing in ghanaEvery January for the last seven years, select ORU nursing students have traveled to the African nation of Ghana to fulfill their clinicals on international ground. It's a trip that has come to mean so much to the Anna Vaughn College of Nursing.

The four-week trip always includes time spent working in rural clinics, teaching practical healthcare techniques in schools, and a lengthy stay at Manna Mission, a hospital in the city of Accra.

"We taught a lot there," says Rebecca Poore, Assistant Professor of Nursing at ORU and the coordinator of the trip. "The students taught dental care and handwashing in the school, and it was well-received. At Manna Mission, we taught CPR for the whole hospital, and it wasn't just the nursing staff that came, but everybody comes from other disciplines. Cooks, support staff, secretaries… they just want to learn!"

A particular highlight of this excursion came with the help of the College of Science and Engineering, which donated a Bunsen burner, some glassware, and a microscope for Trinity Foundations School.

"We carried it there by hand," says Poore, "and when we presented it to them, they were so grateful. They plan to use the equipment to train nurses, doctors, and scientists. Obviously it's only part of what their lab needs, but it'll be complete someday. We'll go back next year and take more equipment. It's a start."

Though the nursing students always change lives while they're there, they come back changed as well.

"It changes your life," says Poore. "You don't come back the same. This is a time when they can separate themselves so they can hear from God, and a lot hear what they're supposed to do for the future."

Poore is already forming the team of students and nursing alumni that will go next January.

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