Loving medicine is what drove me to travel to an entirely different country to provide and set up healthcare for a week, but it was the people in the communities I worked with that made my experience so much more than just medicine.

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So a few months ago I was really thinking about what I wanted to do in my life, as does every college student at one point. I thought maybe I would want to be a traveling doctor or a public health care coordinator in remote regions of the world. I thought, "hey, I love traveling and medicine, maybe I can do both." And just like that, I was looking at my university's Class of 2021 Facebook page and I found an organization called Global Brigades. I saw that they had a chapter in Chicago and decided to go full force into it.

Global Brigades is one of the largest student-led international non-profit organizations out there that uses a holistic approach to improve the health and economics of different communities of certain countries. They work closely with Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, and Ghana. The different brigades that they implement include medical, public health, water, human rights, dental, engineering, and business.

What is unique about this organization is that their goal is to work towards sustainability in each country to the point that they are not needed anymore. For example, Panama no longer needs medical brigades to enter the country because they are completely sustained, which is a huge accomplishment. This is a great goal to have because there are a lot of other organizations out there that say they do the same thing, when really they might just be throwing money at the people of these different countries they claim to help. Well, that is not what Global Brigades was founded upon.

I just came back from a medical brigade to Nicaragua a few days ago and I want to share my story...

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It took weeks of preparing before the actual trip. Meetings every single week, fundraising, etc. Basically, I was going with a group from Chicago brigades, made up of mostly Loyola University of Chicago students, and another group from University of Virginia.

What happens when a medical brigade goes to a country is that they set up a clinic in a community, previously evaluated for the types of medical needs, and they bring in volunteers, like me, community health workers who are locals, doctors, pharmacists, translators, and brigade coordinators. We had four days of clinic, two in one community called La Pita and two in another community called Buena Vista. We worked with the communities to provide medical care. We helped educate them on how they could improve and maintain their health through an activity called 'charla', which means 'to chat' in Spanish. And, we used data informatics to enter the patient's medical records for future use. Many brigades go through a community each year so doing this ensures that the goal of sustainability will be met sometime in the future.

I won't go into massive detail about the ins and outs of what we did because that isn't the point. The point I believe is the most important is what I experienced with the community and how they changed my entire perspective on life.

First off, the community of La Pita is situated in southwest Nicaragua. The road to get there was pretty difficult with the unpaved roads and mountainous terrain.

Immediately when the bus arrived, we jumped out dressed in scrubs ready to go. The "clinic" we were working at was just a few small houses. A huge amount of people were waiting to be treated. The same goes for the community of Buena Vista. However, Buena Vista did have paved roads and an actual clinic building setup. Yet still, both communities have little to almost no access to healthcare because of their rural setting. Some people even traveled several hours on foot, on horse, or on motorcycles to receive the healthcare we were providing.

I went with a small group of people led by the coordinator to visit people's houses and to see how they lived in La Pita. What struck me the most about all the people I met was that they were happy, truly and genuinely happy. I thought, "How can these people be smiling when they have close to nothing?".

I soon realized that my materialistic life doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The people of La Pita live a simple life. They have their families, clothes on their bodies, food to eat, and that's all that matters.

The kids were the best part of the whole trip. I got to play with them, and even though they spoke Spanish while the rest of us spoke mostly English, we were able to establish a bond between us. I was able to make them smile. We even played duck, duck, goose, jumped rope, and danced.

In that moment, when we were all dancing and playing silly games, I realized that this medical brigade is so much more than just medicine. It is learning that although other people may live drastically different than you, we are all human.

We are all capable of loving everyone and making people's lives a bit better through kindness and selflessness. Because that is what going on a brigade means: to become selfless in a world full of selfishness and to give yourself to others in need.

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The kids and the other people of the communities we saw taught me an important lesson; that to be truly happy, you don't need materialistic items, however, it's the other people that you are with that make life matter.

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I am truly grateful for what I have and my opportunity to get a great education because I now have experienced first hand that not everyone gets that. Actually, a lot of people don't. But that doesn't mean they are any worse human beings than us. We all have different lives, but we all matter to each other.

The communities thanked us for being there, and you could tell they were extremely grateful for our help. I might never see those kids again, but to be able to put a smile on their face for just one day was enough to make me happy.

At the end of the week, after finishing four exhausting days in the clinic sweating from the heat outside, all of us as a group were able to reflect on our experiences. At dinner, we lit a candle and passed it around the table as each person told their unique story. Every single person there was able to recall a moment during their time spent in Nicaragua, whether it was talking with a patient or playing with the young kids, that was unique to them. And up until then, I had no idea what this trip meant to other people. It brought me to tears knowing how impactful this experience was not only on me, but on the other people as well. I can honestly say that I have gained amazing friends through this medical brigade that I wouldn't have met otherwise. And it was in this time of reflection that I realized what we were doing in Nicaragua is really something special. I became a part of Nicaragua during this trip, and I will always carry a little bit of it inside my heart.

So, yes, I originally went on a medical brigade to Nicaragua because I am a pre-med student and thought it would be a great opportunity to experience healthcare in another country. While I did do that, I got so much more out of this trip than I ever will in school. I met some truly inspiring people in Nicaragua who make me want to be a better person.

This is why I believe that everyone should do a trip like this at least once in their life. You don't have to be a pre-med student or a healthcare/science major. All you have to be willing to do is be open to helping others. I'm not gonna lie, it is a scary thing to do. To put yourself out there and try to speak another language.

But if you do that, like I did with my brigade, I guarantee you will feel the same things I felt.

You will come back a better human being; a person who is more willing to give love freely through compassionate acts of selflessness and a person who will give to the world no matter what the world gives them.

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For more information go to: https://www.globalbrigades.org