Introduction - Pathways Beyond the Classroom

I also want to thank our listeners for joining us as it is our goal to not only share with you our guest’s introduction to international healthcare, but also to share with you how that exposure to international healthcare has shaped their future path in healthcare. As true patient advocates, we should all aspire to be as well rounded as possible in order to meet the needs of our diverse patient populations. 

As a 50+ year nurse that has worked in quite a variety of clinical roles in our healthcare system, taught healthcare courses for the past 20 years at the university level, and has traveled extensively with my students on international service-learning trips, I can easily attest to the fact that healthcare focused students need, and greatly benefit from the opportunity to have hands-on experiential healthcare experiences in an international setting! I have seen the growth of students post travel as their self-confidence in their newly acquired skillsets, both clinical and cultural, facilitates their ability to take advantage of opportunities that previously may not have been available to them. By rendering care internationally, and stepping outside one's comfort zone, many more doors of opportunity will be opened.

Feel free to check out our website at www.islonline.org, follow us on Instagram @ islmedical, and reach out to me @ DrH@islonline.org

Transcript

Who Will We Hear From

Why This Podcast Exists

The Transformative Power of Service

Passion Beyond Social Media

Experience Over Classroom Learning

Emotional Realities of Healthcare

Why I’m Qualified to Host

Life Experience 1: Financial Struggle

Life Experience 2: Academic Hurdles

Life Experience 3: Finding a Path

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Well, hey there. I'm Dr. Patrick Hickey or Dr. H, as many of my students refer to me. I want to welcome you to the introductory episode of the International Service Learning Experiential Medical Education Podcast. I have been a nurse for over 45 years, recently retired from the University of South Carolina, where I taught healthcare-focused courses for over 15 years, and in retirement now I continue to mentor healthcare-focused students as well as contribute my time towards the ongoing development of international service. During each episode, I will be interviewing healthcare-focused students and faculty from high school to university, many of which have had an opportunity to participate in an international service learning trip. Additionally, I will be discussing the benefits and challenges to international service with healthcare professionals that have served abroad, as well as industry leaders in healthcare, education, study abroad, spirituality, and those living in the countries being served. Today, though, I want to take advantage of this opportunity to share the rationale behind the podcast, the history and the purpose. I'm very excited to be the host of the podcast and want to let all of you know that it's taken quite a lot of work to get to this point in production. Many thanks to the hundreds and hundreds of how-to videos, the support of my wife Carol, as I spent hour upon hour upon hour trying to grasp how a podcast is put together, and of course, to the support of Jonathan Birnbaum, Executive Director of International Service Learning, who is sponsoring this project. Jonathan is a visionary in international service learning and has designed ISL to become the gold standard in logistics providers that provide hands-on experiential opportunities for healthcare-focused students in international settings. What started as a grassroots effort by students to acquire more healthcare experience prior to entering college and or graduate school has now become a thriving enterprise of logistics providers competing to facilitate the needs of healthcare-focused students. Jonathan will be my first guest in the next episode and will be able to share the history of logistics providers' efforts to accommodate the needs of healthcare students. But most importantly, he will be able to share the 31-year history of ISL, the issues, the challenges, the rewards, and what he perceives as the future of international service. Prior to that episode with Jonathan, I wanted to take the lead with this introduction to the concept of why I felt it was important to create a podcast that is specific to international service learning. For 20 plus years, I have been privileged to be able to coordinate and lead healthcare focused trips abroad with university students, and it was during this time that I was able to see and feel the transformative effects of international service learning on our youth. This is the joy of a teacher when you see your students take the challenge to do something for the first time, followed by the inevitable growth in self-confidence and self-esteem. This transformation is magical and very hard to put into words, but it is an experience that shows deep passion. Not only did I experience a passion of international service myself while traveling with my students, I was also able to experience their passion as I saw them change from silent observers on the fringe to wholeheartedly participating in new experiences that would forever change their lives. Throughout our episodes you will hear from quite a variety of people, with the commonalities being travel, international settings, culture, education, healthcare, spirituality, civic engagement, and service learning. What you will also hear is their passion, a passion that was experienced while involved in service, and a passion that led to a future career in healthcare. This passion is sometimes felt in an Instagram reel or in pictures of a moment in time that are posted on social media. But the true passion of an international service learning experience is best felt during the experience itself and afterwards when reflecting on that experience one-on-one with someone who has been there, done that. Through my role in these podcasts, I hope to be able to help our guests to share that passion that they have experienced. After 20 plus years of being involved in international service learning, I'm a true believer that these experiences were foundational in helping the individual students to make a determination of their future career paths. While classroom experiences build knowledge, it is the experiential experiences that truly create a passion for what one is doing. Having taught university students for the past 20 years, I have also come to learn that they are very confused about their future career paths, are very limited in their knowledge of what opportunities exist, and are worried regarding whether or not they have what it takes to excel in their future field of study. Most worrisome for the healthcare focused students is that of the emotional aspects of healthcare, how to deal with pain and suffering, how to deal with deaf and dying, how to break bad news to a family member, how to console a grieving person, and most importantly how to deal with their own personal emotions. A question posed to me many times is is it okay to cry? These scenarios could be discussed in a classroom setting, but are best experienced in a clinical setting where the healthcare support staff are there to manage the situation and to guide the students through their personal responses. On each and every international service trip that I've had for the past 20 plus years, I have been with students as they experience what I refer to as a roller coaster of emotions, from high highs when a patient is treated and discharged on a path to wellness, or low lows when a patient is diagnosed with a terminal disease to which there is no cure. The emotions that students experience and the support provided them during these scenarios is very critical to their decision process to move forward on a career path in health care. I have been privileged to be a fundamental part of that support team and greatly believe that it is my life experiences that have set me up to be in a position where I can now guide and support students through the highs and lows of the roller coaster of emotions that they experience in rendering health care. It is those experiences that I now want to share with you as I feel the need to do so to establish that I am qualified to facilitate a podcast on healthcare focused international service learning. There is a saying that hindsight is 2020, which means that it's easy to see and understand the past clearly after it has happened. And as I reflect on life, which I do a lot more now at the age of 70, I can see that there were many things in my life that have molded me into the person that I am today. I really don't know if podcasters need to validate who they are and how they are qualified to do what they do, but as a teacher and a mentor, I feel the need to justify that it was significant life experiences to date that I have had that have set me up now to be in a position whereby I can better understand the challenges that my students experience on a daily basis. There are many life experiences that I can share, but bear with me as I list seven of those life experiences that many of my students I feel have also experienced. Life experience number one. This is related to a lack of family financial resources. I was born in Canada's capital, Ottawa, Ontario, and soon thereafter moved to rural Ontario where I grew up on a farm on the fringes of a small town. I was raised in a loving, large family, and as the oldest of nine kids, eight boys and one girl, we struggled to the point where hand me down clothes were looked upon as Christmas presents. Mom and dad did as best they could, but with one income and a lot of kids, it was a real challenge for them to feed and clothe us and put us all through school. My solution was to take on part-time jobs while attending school in order to defray the costs of school and clothing, and I'm sure that my parents really appreciated those efforts. Now I typically share with my students that there are resources on campus that can better assist those that are struggling to make ends meet. I know that many of my students and their families struggle financially with the costs of a college education, with some students trying to graduate a semester or even a year early just to help out their families. Many students will put off study abroad opportunities or joining Greek societies in order to save as much money as possible, while others will work throughout their school years as I did. Life experience number two. This is related to my challenges associated with academics. I did not excel academically in school, and in fact I was awful in math, but I never sought help. This perceived lack of math skills bothered me all of my life as I worried that I would make a miscalculation on a medication dosage in my role as a nurse. Now I typically share with my students that we all have great strengths and we all have weaknesses, but it is those weaknesses that we should seek assistance with in order to turn a weakness into a strength. Unfortunately, it still appears that there is a stigma associated with asking for help. My message to students is please ask for help, as we as faculty are there to provide assistance when needed. Life experience number three. This is related to my confusion specific to what my future path in life would be. I had no real idea of what I wanted to do with my life, but most fortunately it was my high school guidance counselor who saw something in me that I did not see in myself. She suggested that I pursue becoming a registered nurse. This was over fifty years ago when few, if any men, were entering that profession. This did resonate with my Catholic upbringing, specific to helping others and servitude, but when she made the recommendation, I had no idea how life-changing that statement would become. That recommendation to become a nurse was further validated when a week later I listened to a college recruiter talk about the profession of nursing, and it was three words that he shared that changed my life forever. Nurses save lives. I typically share with students that it may take a family member or a friend to be the best judge of a student's potential to do something that they may never had considered. Isn't it funny how it may be the littlest of things that make a difference in our lives, whether it be a recommendation from a friend, a passionate talk or a speech by a teacher, or a healthcare scenario where you have seen the care extended to yourself or a friend by a healthcare provider and could easily see yourself doing the same thing. Life experience number four. This is related to my perceived need for higher education. Postgraduation from nursing school in Canada, I moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, where I worked in a variety of settings as a registered nurse in a level one trauma center, with the most meaningful experiences being the time that I spent working in a very fast-paced emergency room setting. In this hectic environment, I experienced pain and suffering, death and dying on a weekly basis. It was traumatizing. I felt that if I could get more education, I could save more lives. Now I typically share with my students that education does not stop once you graduate from university. It is ongoing. In the healthcare profession is critical to stay on top of the new medicines, treatments, and equipment that are being provided for patient care, so we always recommend that our students pursue the highest degree in health care as we equate that higher education and increased knowledge will save more lives. Many students perceive that an undergraduate degree is all that they need to pursue their future paths in life, and indeed it may be, but in healthcare we do recommend and strongly encourage students to pursue higher education, which will inevitably create more positive patient outcomes. Life experience number five, this is related to the power of passion. In May of nineteen ninety six there was a tragedy on Mount Everest that resulted in the death of eight high altitude climbers. I learned about it through the news reports at the time, then learned more details in a magazine article. Many mistakes were made, and people died unnecessarily on top of the world at twenty nine thousand thirty five feet. While reading that article, I noted that one of the climbers, doctor Beck Weathers, was not able to finish his quest to complete the seven summits of the world, as he was temporarily blinded on his ascent and never made it to the top of the world. Beck's vision did return later, but he spent the night exposed just below the summit and suffered horrific injuries, having to have both hands and his nose amputated. As I learned from the article, the seven summits are the highest peaks on the seven continents of the world, and in 1996 there had been very few people that had successfully made it to the summit of each of the highest mountains on the seven continents of the world. For some unknown reason, I decided that this challenge would also become mine. At that point in time I was an outdoor adventurer, had backpacked extensively around the world, but had never climbed a mountain. With the support of my wife Carol, I set out to train to become a high altitude mountain climber. In what I jokingly refer to as my midlife crisis, between 2001 and 2007, I traveled to all seven continents of the world as an independent mountain climber and successfully made it to the top of the highest mountain on each continent in my very first attempt to do so. After my final summit, Mount Everest, on May 24th, 2007, I joined a small cohort of only 75 people in the world at that time who were members of the Seven Summits Club, and was the first nurse to have gained this recognition. My book, Seven Summits, A Nurse's Quest to Conquer Mountaineering in Life, chronicles my path in life with all proceeds of book sales and my motivational talks going to my scholarships. As a philanthropist, I have endowed numerous scholarships for healthcare focused students. Now I typically share with my students that passion trumps everything. I put myself out there as an example as I was passionate about my high altitude climbing despite a very uncomfortable fear of heights that paralyzed me on high rock ledges and steep ascents. My passion drove me to succeed, and my passion was unwavering. I have found that those students who are most passionate about their careers will do much better in life, and many have deep passions for their futures. The challenge remains though in helping others to find their passion, as many will not yet have realized what their passion is to be. However, I have seen on service learning trips that students typically will discover that passion which fires them up on return to school and puts them on a more specific career pathway. Life experience number six is related to my pursuit to develop cultural competency. When pursuing a master's and a doctorate in public health, I focused my research on the barriers that Hispanics have when accessing health care. From the healthcare perspective, I perceived that there were inequalities in access to healthcare by Hispanics, so I became very involved in the community where I organized health affairs for the Hispanics, was promoted to leadership roles in Hispanic organizations, and most importantly, developed an interpreter program from a hospital so that those with limited English proficiency would have someone helping them. Now I typically share with my healthcare-focused students that they should take advantage of any and all experiences to gain cultural competencies, as it is those experiences that will help them to become more well-rounded future patient advocates. Prior to my work in the Hispanic community, I had had very few cultural experiences myself, and know that many of my students had few cultural experiences until they traveled abroad on a service learning trip, an experience that helped them to become advocates for underserved populations. And finally, life experience number seven. This is related to my development of an independent international healthcare course at the University of South Carolina, and by doing so I had to step out of my comfort zone. The course included a spring break trip to Latin America to render hands-on health care in urban and or rural settings, and I planned to travel with the students, a huge responsibility. I taught this course to students who were interested in becoming nurses, PAs, MDs, OT, PT, pharmacists, etc., for over 15 years and travel with the students to work with them in the clinic settings. It was here that I saw their passion to help others, their collegiality, their teamwork, and their leadership. It was here also that students develop cultural competencies, and it was here that they were able to see their future roles as healthcare providers. Now I typically share with my students to step out of their comfort zone and to take on a challenge. In the case of a study abroad trip, it could be the first time to fly, the first time to be exposed to another language, another culture, and foods that are very different from what they're used to consuming. It's how those challenges are addressed that will help students to build patience, fortitude, and perseverance. No pain, no game is an adage popularized as a fitness motto, meaning you must endure some hardship or discomfort to achieve success, progress, or greater rewards. In application of this adage to education, I make the case for establishing good study habits, always pushing to exceed expectations, learning how to ask for help, surrounding oneself with a strong support team, and always establishing and completing goals. Adding to the life experience that I've highlighted, I need to share a few more bits of information that contribute to my role as a podcaster speaking about the value of international CRIS learning. On the international arena, my wife Carol and I have what we call wanderlust, a desire for travel and adventure. And to that end, we have traveled extensively. In 1984, we backpacked throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA for a year. In 1988, we backpacked around the entire world for a year. And in 1993, we backpacked through Latin America for a year. To date, we have backpacked throughout 88 countries around the world. In my spare time, I am an angel pilot, which means I fly patients in my plane at no cost to the patient, from their home to a specialty hospital, and or from the hospital to their home. I share these life experiences as I want my audience to know that it is these collective experiences that have given me a comfort level with stepping outside the limits, realizing one's potential and always striving to succeed. I am hopeful that these experiences will help me as I move forward with podcasting a huge leap outside my comfort level. I want to thank our listeners for joining me today, as it is my goal to share with you how exposure to international health care can shape students' future path in healthcare. As true patient advocates, we should all aspire to be as well-rounded as possible in order to meet the needs of our diverse patient populations. As a 45-year-plus nurse that's worked in quite a variety of clinical roles in our healthcare system, taught healthcare courses for the past 20 years at the university level, and has traveled extensively with my students on international service learning trips, I can easily attest to the fact that healthcare-focused students need and greatly benefit from the opportunity to have hands-on healthcare experiences in an international setting. I have seen the growth of students post-travel as their self-confidence in their newly acquired skill sets, both clinical and cultural, facilitate their ability to take advantage of the opportunities that previously may not have been available to them. My recommendation to those listening is to go beyond the classroom and into the field. If you are a student, take advantage of those opportunities to advance yourself in your future profession. If you are a parent, encourage your child to seek out these opportunities as it will open their eyes to the great need for healthcare and how they can make a difference in the lives of others. Please feel free to share our podcast with friends that are healthcare focused, as our weekly episodes will definitely give them a better perspective of what their future role could be in healthcare. Our international service learning trips offer aspiring healthcare professionals the chance to gain hands-on clinical experiences in under-resourced urban and rural communities. Work alongside licensed medical professionals, learn to adapt to challenging environments, and develop the cultural competency and clinical skill sets that are essential for a successful career in our increasingly diverse and global healthcare system.