UM Nursing Students to Spend Winter Break Helping Patients in India

MISSOULA – Sometimes the road to India leads through the Missoula Farmer’s Market.

This summer, three University of Montana nursing students spent their Saturday’s painting faces at the market to raise money for a trip in December to Jaipur, the capital of India’s Rajasthan state. There they will spend their winter break on a medical mission to help low-income patients seeking health care.

“None of us really had training in face painting, but we eventually became quite good,” said Laura Maldonado, a second-year nursing student at UM’s Missoula College. “We told people about our medical mission trip and that we were paying for it ourselves, and they were really generous.”

Maldonado, along with fellow second-year students Saidee Danyo and Shuly Rodriguez, said they decided to sign up for the trip to get a better idea of health care issues facing people in other countries. They had the choice to go to India or Belize, choosing India because Danyo had been there the past summer visiting family friends and shared her impressions of the country.

“I toured a medical facility and I saw the needs,” Danyo said. “There is a lot of poverty there, and many people don’t have access to health care.”

Nursing Associate Professor Wendy Barker said Missoula College has helped students make these trips for several years and is partnering on the India trip with a nonprofit called International Medical Relief out of Denver. She said the trips give students opportunities they might not get interning in the U.S.

“They get to practice their nursing skills, of course,” Barker said, “but it also gives them exposure to world health issues and is a huge cultural education.”

On most trips, the students work in remote sites, often in makeshift facilities. While there the students help with basic assessment of patients, take vital signs and assist with procedures as they can.

“They also conduct health care education,” Baker said. “Oral care, hand hygiene, feminine hygiene.”

Missoula College nursing graduate Lara Hall went on a medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic in 2019.

 “We originally were supposed to be set up at an orphanage, but it turned out to be more of a community center with cinder block walls and a tarp roof,” Hall said. “We saw family members for everything.”

That included a young boy with a heart condition, a pastor with diabetes and lots of patients with stomach bugs.

The experience reminded Hall of how much Americans take everyday things like clean water and food for granted.

“You really learn to empathize with people,” she said. “We all don’t get the same opportunities, the same education.

“I will never forget the people I met,” she added, “and I would do it every year if I could.”

To prepare for their upcoming trip, Rodriguez said they join the organizers over Zoom every week and are talking with UM’s Curry Health Center about vaccinations they will need and other health precautions.

“Each of us has been asked to bring medical supplies with us as well,” she said. “We’ve been told to expect about 35 pounds worth.”

In the meantime, they continue to raise funds – about $7,000 each – to pay for their expenses, including some very complicated travel arrangements to get from Missoula to the middle of India

“This is going to be an unforgettable experience,” Danyo said. “Actually, it’s been an adventure already.”

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Contact: Dave Kuntz, UM director of strategic communications, 406-243-5659, dave.kuntz@umontana.edu.