Michael Fabrick from Glen Rock is one of four physical therapy students from Slippery Rock University (SRU) who are traveling to Arequipa, Peru, for approximately two weeks from July to August to provide physical therapy care to Peruvians in underserved, rural areas. The trip is in conjunction with Medical Ministry International (MMI).
The SRU group will work with Peruvian physical therapists to administer care at pop-up clinics at various locations around Arequipa. They will treat patients by resizing and providing orthotics that will help support patients' injuries, deformities and other debilitating conditions. The orthotics the SRU students are taking were provided by donations through MMI. The students will also teach and recommend rehabilitation protocols and provide physical therapy that the patients would not otherwise receive due to limited access to health care in Peru.
Fabrick is SRU's director of the project, which is partially funded by a $1,000 grant from the university's Student Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities grant program. The remaining program costs, which exceed $3,000 per student, are being covered by the students and external family and church fundraising efforts.
This is the 11th year that a group of students from SRU's physical therapy department are traveling to Peru through the MMI partnership. A group of second-year physical therapy students travels to Peru every year, just prior to the start of the students' 15-week clinical rotations.
Mary Ann Holbein-Jenny, professor of physical therapy, said the students will see patients with post-surgical conditions or unrecognized, deteriorating injuries, and they will have to be creative without traditional equipment. For example, they might have a patient use a bottle filled with rocks instead of a dumbbell or therapeutic band while exercising.
The students may also encounter a child with cerebral palsy or spina bifida and have to fit them with a neurological wheelchair.
The SRU contingent will also benefit by obtaining experience and honing techniques that they will use for their clinical rotations, prior to graduating next May. Three of the students have never traveled outside North America.
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