OSU Medical/ Dental Brigades Aug 2013 Panama

Start Date: Aug 4, 2013 12:00 AM
End Date: Aug 10, 2013 12:00 AM

Medical Brigades at OSU is a discipline of Global Brigades, the world's largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization. The OSU chapter systematically works with more than 350 other university groups around the world to deliver and implement one of nine skill-based programs that benefit more than 130,000 Honduran, Panamanian, and Ghanaian community members annually.

Medical Brigade volunteers will set up temporary clinics in pre-identified communities in Eastern Panama to provide healthcare where access is limited. Each community receives a brigade every 3-4 months. Students on the brigade are given the opportunity to shadow licensed health care professionals while learning about local Panamanian culture. A typical Medical/Dental Brigade clinic consists of six stations: Intake, Triage, Consultation, Dental, Charla (health education), and Pharmacy. Electronic patient records are collected during the brigade to ensure patient follow-up as well as to monitor overall community health trends. Between brigades, the in-country team maintains relationships with the communities to provide follow-up and conduct community health worker training aimed at empowering local leaders to perpetuate a consistent level of health care. For every student who volunteers on a Global Medical Brigade, sixty patients can see a doctor who otherwise would not be able to.