Bradenton Herald - www.bradentonherald.com

LAKEWOOD RANCH --- As the holidays approach, five Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine students are thankful for an experience that changed their lives.

The students all traveled to developing countries this year to volunteer their time in hospitals, clinics and refugee camps. And all came away with a gift. "I really learned how to love and care for someone I never met before," said Jason Wright, 24, a second-year LECOM student from Seattle who traveled to Zambia as part of a Christian Medical Association outreach program.

Wright performed osteopathic manipulation he learned in his first year at LECOM to help a Zambian woman who was experiencing intense neck, lower back and leg pain from carrying a large basket on her head.
"I couldn't always treat them with medicines, but I could place my hands on them," Wright said. "I learned the value of compassionate care."

Second-year student Morganna Freeman lived with a host family in Guatemala for part of this year.
Freeman was taken to a hospital where children infected by AIDS since birth sleep two or three to a bunk.
Freeman recalled reaching into a crib and lifting out a three-year-old girl named Diana, who had shiny black eyes and ringlets of black hair.

"When I picked her up, she put her arms around my neck and didn't let go," Freeman said.
Freeman wasn't prepared for the portion of her medical training she now describes as love.

"Guatemala changed me," said Freeman, who was sponsored by Dartmouth Medical School. "Now I understand why I am doing what I am doing. I want to help those who need me."

The trip has made Freeman want to open clinics herself and mentor future doctors on compassionate care.
"Morgy will be the first doctor in our family," said Freeman's mother, Priscilla, a teacher in San Antonio, Texas, for 28 years. "When she told me she wanted to go to Guatemala I was uncomfortable at first. But now I'm proud of her."

Wright saw patients in shacks and on the street.

He saw 3,000 people in seven days at a copper mine.

"I saw HIV, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases," Wright said. "I saw street kids who huff gasoline to help with their hunger."

LECOM students Aida Kousheshian, 26, Nery Diaz, 42, and Dempsie Morrison, 26, all visited the Dominican Republic this year on a trip sponsored by LECOM's International Medical Society.

"I will always remember a little girl in a hospital who couldn't stop shaking," Morrison said. "She had a fever they were trying to break."

Kousheshian will always remember children swarming around her for stickers of dinosaur airplanes and butterflies, donated by The Toy Lab of Sarasota.

"They put the stickers all over their faces," Kousheshian said.

Diaz, who was born and raised in Cuba, said the Dominican Republic gave her a global vision.

"People we were treating with an anti-parasitic for diarrhea have to go back and drink more contaminated water," she said. "Every developing country needs public health infrastructure."

The students' gifts will make them better doctors, their professors and fellow students said Wednesday.

"Morganna comes into problem-based learning well-prepared every day," said Dr. Emil Adamec, a LECOM professor of neuroscience and pharmacology.

Mark Shank, a fellow student of Freeman's, said Freeman has impressed him with her spirit.
"She has phenomenal leadership skills," Shank said. "She knows when to step up. She's become so confident in herself."

The fact that these students wanted to do something for their fellow man outside of their country is impressive, said fellow student Melissa Roewe.

Clarence "Chip" Colle, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, agreed.

"The choices they made show how compassionate they are about medicine," he said.