Safe Care, Far From Home

Want to help without harming? We sit down with Dr. Patrick Hickey—nurse, educator, author, and veteran leader in international service learning—to map the real work behind ethical global health volunteering. From the first country risk check to the last clinic debrief, we unpack how preparation, cultural humility, and clinical guardrails protect both communities and volunteers while creating powerful growth for early‑career clinicians.

We start where most trips should: assessing risk with U.S. Department of State travel advisories, CDC travel health notices, and realistic logistics that prevent problems before they start. Dr. Hickey walks us through the essentials—reliable flights and visas, vetted lodging and food safety, insured transport with seat belts, and written crisis and evacuation plans that are practiced, not just printed. Then we get practical about culture and conduct: confidentiality that travels with you, informed consent for photos, attire that respects norms, and orientation that blends clinical refreshers with local context so teams arrive ready to listen, not impose.

Communication and boundaries anchor safe care. You’ll hear how to use the interpreter‑patient‑provider triad, why language access is a legal right in U.S. settings, and how that training turns students into advocates. We dig into scope of practice—what learners can do, what they should only observe—and how those limits actually speed confidence and competence. Dr. Hickey also opens up about emotional resilience: preparing for hard moments, accepting gratitude with grace, and finding meaning in “small” wins like matching donated eyeglasses that change daily life. Along the way, we address parent concerns, first‑time flight jitters, and the career impact that follows when service becomes a habit, not a hashtag.

If you’re planning a medical mission, weighing a service learning program, or mentoring students eager to serve, this conversation offers a clear, humane blueprint for doing it right. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s curious about global health, and leave a review telling us the one safety step you’ll add to your checklist.

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

Setting The Mission: Safe Care Abroad

Alida 0:31

Volunteering in international healthcare settings can be incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with responsibilities. In this episode, we explore what it really takes to provide safe ethical care abroad. Through the lens of international service learning, we dive into how preparation, cultural sensitivity, and clinical safety come together to protect both the volunteer and the community. We are joined by Dr. Patrick Hickey, who has spent his career blending healthcare, education, and global engagement. As a published author, pilot, and a retired nursing faculty member from the University of South Carolina, he designed and led an international service learning course, guiding students through hands-on work in rural clinics around the world. Now, as the social media manager for international service learning, he continues to champion safety, self-care, and ethical

Guest Intro: Dr. Patrick Hickey

Alida 1:18

global health volunteering. Hi, Dr. Hickey. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to ask you a couple questions. So to start us off, I know that your background uniquely combines medical education and on the ground international experience. So thinking back to those early days of preparing students for global service, what kind of safety training or preparation did you consider essential before arriving in the field?

Dr. H 1:46

Well, Lita, uh so nice to meet you and I appreciate everything you're doing. You know, you're you're helping more people to understand the value of preparation and safety, which should go into every program that one gets involved in. Safety is so huge. In addition to the introduction that you gave of me, I've done a lot of things to validate what I bring to the table. While working in a hospital setting, I was a risk manager. Risk manager deals with daily safety issues in a hospital setting. Uh so I did that for many years. So I bring a lot of that hospital health care safety experience to the Forum of International Healthcare Education. Way before a student even goes on a trip, when we talk about safety, we look at the countries itself or themselves, and we try to

Country Risk: State And CDC Checks

Dr. H 2:36

determine is this a safe country that we can take our students to? We use a lot of different tools to determine the safety level of that country. And one of those tools is the U.S. Department of State travel advisories. Not sure if a lot of people know what that is, but basically, anytime you travel anywhere around the world, you should, even if it's on vacation, check the U.S. Department of State travel advisories. They have four levels of safety. Level one, normal, exercise normal precautions. In other words, just do what you normally do if you were back home. Level two, exercise increased caution. There's something going on you need to be a little wary about. Level three, reconsider travel to the country. That means there's something dynamic going on in that country. It may not be in the whole country itself, it may be just in a certain area of the country, but it's a definitely a red flag. Then number four, do not travel. So those are huge flags of warning prior to even discussing where we're going to go with the students. And having led 20 years of service learning medical mission trips, those numbers change quite often. Sometimes within even a week or a couple of months within one country, you can go from a level one to a level four overnight. So we always have to be very, very aware. And then when we look at reconsider travel, which is number three, a lot of times we will take students on trips where it's at level three, but we drill down to look at where is that area of the country and are we going to be near that area where it's considered a challenge. So that's that's very, very important. We monitor these sites all the time. They have security alerts and notices. So that's huge. That's before we go. Again, before we go, again, related to safety, is checking the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. The neat thing about the CDC is it gives uh travel health notices before you even go to a country, any one of us, even just going on vacation, much less a service learning trip. You need to know the vaccines that are required, the things to be aware of, the preventable diseases or diseases that are endemic to that country at that time. So monitoring the CDC is important. Also, looking at flights to and from countries or transportation to and from countries, how dependable are they? How safe are they? You want to be very concerned before taking a cohort of students to another country that you're not going to get laid up in an airport overnight or in a country where you were transiting that country and maybe you didn't have a visa. So looking at the travel plans are really important. And on top of that, the visa requirements also. So there's a lot of safety preparation initially that goes on even before we consider what country we're going to.

Logistics: Visas, Lodging, Food Safety

Dr. H 5:39

Once we start looking at the country and we start looking and identifying an area to go to, one of the most important things, as you would know, is lodging. You know, where are we going to house our students? Where are we going to house ourselves? Some study abroad travel programs have homestays. If you have a homestay, you've really got to vet the family well, make sure they have a clean sanitary environment, make sure it's safe in that environment. You know, getting gender-specific, especially if a lone female in a house with a family, is it a secure environment for that female? And male also, but I'm just speaking more so from the father figure of a female traveling and being put in a homestay environment. The hotels that we pick, the lodgings that we pick, do they have security? Are they safe? Is there running water? You know, all those kind of things are important. After lodging, food, real critical. You don't want someone to go on a week-long or a two-week-long trip and get sick on day number one or day number two. So, how do we do that? Well, we've got to check all the restaurants, you've got to make sure they're all sanitary, we've got to make sure that they're rinsing vegetables in clean water, gotta make sure that our students aren't having ice in their drinks because that ice is local water and ice might be contaminated. So there's a lot of precautions that go into food, no raw vegetables, making sure our students are very aware of these

Transport, Community Buy‑In, Crisis Plans

Dr. H 7:06

things too. In country, in addition to uh in addition to accommodations, one has to consider transportation. How are you going to get around? Uh the buses that we use, the vans that we use, the local taxis, you know, have they been vetted? Do they have insurance? What would happen if we had an accident in the country? You know, in the van, does it have seat belts for the students? A lot of things we have to consider. And then in our case, setting up rural clinics, is it safe in the communities where we're going to? You know, I'm I'm a retired nursing faculty, but my master's and doctorate are in public health. And one thing we learn in public health is before we go into an environment and implement changes, we need to make sure that we've work with that environment and we get buy-in from the people. We can't go to a community to render assistance if we don't have buy-in from the community if they don't want us there. Then we're starting off in a negative situation. So we need to make sure that the clinical site is safe, that there's no issues with where we're located. It's a low crime area, so to speak. That's important. Really, really, really important is the overall emergency disaster plan. So international service learning, and I'm sure every other company that's out there that is a mid-level provider that provides opportunities for service learning trips, everyone should have in place an internal crisis plan where something, heaven forbid, should happen in that country, political upheaval of the government, etc., that that the employees in that country know exactly what to do, when to do it. Their primary focus is student safety. So how do we get the students out of that country that's in political turmoil that changed overnight and we had no idea about it? So that overarching crisis plan or emergency plan is so critical. And then we get down into some of the nitty-gritty of things that that day-to-day affect students when we're doing service learning trips, you know, our alcohol policy, our drug policy, what clothing you wear, not being too provocative. And this goes back to cultural

Culture, Conduct, And Orientation

Dr. H 9:19

competency. You know, how do we prepare students for these trips if they've never been to these countries before? In our case, we have a lot of modules and a lot of different things that students have to watch before they are even allowed to go on the trip to make sure that they brought their level of understanding up. And then once, in our case with International Service Learning, once they get in country, we have a whole day of orientation. And our focus is health care. But in that orientation, we go over a lot of healthcare regimen, but we also go over a lot of cultural competencies to make sure that our students know what is acceptable in the community and what is not acceptable.

Alida 9:57

Yeah, I mean, beyond the clinical skills, like you said, cultural awareness is super critical. I was actually going to ask you about what global health volunteering looks like at the organizational level. So thank you for bringing that up. And also the orientations you're talking about, this kind of goes into my next

Boundaries, Confidentiality, And HIPAA

Alida 10:13

question. Um, you talked about working in hospital settings, and I know that working in rural clinics abroad can be both deeply rewarding but also emotionally taxing. So, with safety and self-care being such central themes in your approach, how did you help students at that organizational level kind of understand how to set personal boundaries while also delivering compassionate care? Um, again, going into that cultural awareness.

Dr. H 10:36

Yeah, excuse me, but it's always a challenge trying to establish those those boundaries. And I always try to personalize it as much as possible. I mean, you know, we we try to impress upon the students how confidentiality is so vitally important because we're taking students on service learning medically themed trips while they're 18, 19, and 20 years old. After they graduate from their undergrad, say for example, they're a nursing student, then they step into a hospital environment. And one thing that's critical once you step into that hospital environment is HIPAA. HIPAA is all about confidentiality. So we try to impress from day number one on a service learning trip that these patients that we're working with, whether they're in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, they have the same rights and privileges as the future patients that we will be caring for in America. So that even goes down to taking pictures, for example. You see a lot of videos or pictures of students in in developing countries, you know, taking selfies with other people. Well, we are adamant that you can do that, but only with permission from the parent, or only with permission from, and we even have a form that we have to get signed to do that. So we really try to respect the rights and privileges of patients as much as we can, and we embed that. In my case, I had a course that I taught, and I went over a lot of that ad nauseum. For ISL, for those that aren't taking a course, we have modules and information sheets that students will review and videos.

Interpreters And The Triadic Relationship

Dr. H 12:10

In fact, we're working on a new one right now. One thing that's critical to most international study broad trips is what we call the triadic relationship. The interpreter, the patient, and the healthcare provider. Three people, a triangle. The triadic relationship is how do we elicit information from someone that has limited English proficiency? And what is that process? So we're actually in the process right now of developing a video tutorial that every one of our students before they go on an ISL trip will review this video. They'll be more comfortable when they get into the clinical setting in that developing country. But most importantly, once that student is working in a healthcare setting in the United States and they come to work one day and they have a patient who has limited English proficiency, who doesn't speak English, that student who's now a nurse, for example, or a doctor, would say, Well, where's my interpreter? And that student, if someone at that hospital says, Well, we don't, we can't afford one, that student, because they took our module, will know that there are laws in the United States that protect people with limited English proficiency. That student will now become an advocate for that patient, say, Oh no, I took a module when I took an international service learning trip, and I learned for a fact that we need to have interpreters here. So by planting seeds with students, we're helping them to be better advocates once they get to the clinical setting later down the line.

Alida 13:42

Yeah, of course. Beyond clinical skills, cultural awareness is absolutely critical. So it's super important for volunteers to be prepared, like you said, to be both medically responsible and culturally sensitive in those unfamiliar settings. And kind of shifting a bit, ISL is known for offering immersive, hands-on

Scope Of Practice And Hands‑On Learning

Alida 14:00

experiences. So, from your perspective, how do you strike that balance between giving students meaningful engagement and also ensuring the safety and dignity of communities they serve?

Dr. H 14:10

Yeah, scope of practice is a huge buzzword in the clinical setting. Scope of practice means I have the training to do X, Y, and Z. We have to be very careful that when we're working with students, that we keep them within their scope of practice. In other words, we don't allow them to do too much. Some things we can teach them and allow them to do, some things they have to just observe. We want to make sure that when students are on these experiences, that they're not experimenting on people. This is not what we're doing. We're rendering compassionate health care to these people. The students are prepared through our information sessions and our orientation to do limited things. For the things that they're not able to do, that'll be an observational experience. But experiential, hands-on clinical experience is huge. And, you know, I've seen it myself, again, as a clinical nursing faculty, I see the difference in the students that go on my service learning trips with me when they get to the clinical setting back in the United States. They are light years ahead of their peers who have not had a similar experience in the clinical setting as my students have had. My students have more self-confidence, they have more understanding, they don't even hesitate when they go to meet another patient, whereas the students who have never had the service learning experience are still timid and shy until they get to that same level. So experiential is is so much better than what we teach in the classroom setting. I always say that it takes a couple of years after you graduate, for example, in a nursing program, before you feel comfortable in your skin as a nurse because you've learned a lot of book information in four years of school. It's going to take a couple of years for it to kind of settle in. Oh, that's what they meant. This is what they meant. I understand now. But to be able to go on a service learning trip at an early juncture in college or even in high school, and to to be able to have hands-on experience with patients, that's a huge experience for students that they unfortunately don't get enough of in the United States. It's kind of a sad testament to our system in the United States. We're working with that right now at the University of South Carolina, of trying to provide shadowing opportunities for our healthcare students with doctors in the community. And there's so many hoops that the students have to jump through now, from security checks to liability to you name it, just to shadow a doc to find out, is this something what I want to do? So students go with us on these service learning trips. Not only do they get to see the role of the doctor, the nurse, and the other healthcare providers, but they get to participate, they get to be a part of a team. And that's a huge confidence builder. I would say 99.9% of the students that come back from these trips are confirmed, this is what I want to do. I can see myself doing that. The other 0.1% of students are, hmm, maybe this isn't for me, you know, maybe maybe I'm picking the wrong thing. But it's good they did it, and I truly respect the students that go out of their comfort zone, so to speak, go to a foreign country, go to an area where they don't speak the

Confidence, Career Impact, And Systems Limits

Dr. H 17:20

language, go to a place that's impoverished most times in the rural settings, and then render compassionate health care. They learn from the patients. And in fact, early years and years ago, I used to tell my students, you're gonna learn a lot from these patients that you're gonna encounter. My students kind of looked at me skeptically and said, We're in college. They probably didn't go to college themselves. How are we gonna learn from them? And I said, You'll see. We come back from the trip and I said, Tell me what you learned. Oh my God, the the lessons they learned are unbelievable. You know, they they learn about how compassionate the families are, how how they have very little, but but they have so much, how they have one piece of bread and they give it to us, or they have one chair, they offer it to us, how we can knock on their door and ask if they need help, whereas we could never do that here in the United States for fear of something bad happening to us, going to a stranger's door. So a lot of lessons that we learn from them when we go to their countries, which is huge.

Alida 18:17

Yeah, I mean the best part about travel is that everybody learns from each other, so that's super rewarding. Um, in other words, it's the exchange of experiences and also having that shared experience. That's the most powerful type of education, in my opinion. And then I completely agree about what you said about experiential learning. I mean, I'm a big believer that learning by doing is the best way to go about studying or education. And then on a different note, I was curious about the misconceptions about safety abroad. So

Addressing Fears: Parents, First‑Time Travel

Alida 18:45

do you have any big misconceptions, particularly from a volunteer perspective, that come to mind?

Dr. H 18:50

Well, I I know personally, you know, I've taken, you know, literally thousands of students traveling. A lot of times I don't feel any pushback from the students. The majority of the time it's from the parents. And and I'm not a parent myself, but I totally understand. I feel like I'm a parent to my students, and I I I I get it, you know, from the parents, and I've had to talk to many many parents over the years to allay their anxieties. You know, you know, their their child, their only child is going with a faculty person they don't know, and they're going to a developing country, and and what kind of conditions they don't know that their child is going to experience. So so it's it's it's very palpable their fear. So I I've been able to allay their anxieties. The students I've never had much of a pushback or or issues with challenge, uh although there have been, in in my experience over 20 years of doing this, many, many students that go on my trips. It's the first time they've ever been out of the country. So because of that, I want to make sure that it's a really positive travel experience. And that for a good number of students, it's the very first time that they've traveled on a plane. So there are a few anxieties related to leaving family behind. But the camaraderie, as you know, from going on one of these trips to another country is just huge. And that that group of students that maybe you don't know so well, they become family and they're they're they're your best supporters.

Alida 20:13

Thank you so much for sharing those stories. I I can totally see why parents would have concerns about traveling abroad, but you know, at the end of the day, it's going to be super worthwhile. I mean, it's important to address those misconceptions

Preparation In Action: Emotional Resilience

Alida 20:25

as well. And then finally, I'd love to bring in a real-world example. So is there a moment from your time abroad, maybe with a student or in a clinic, where strong preparation made a clear difference in the outcome either for safety learning or community impact?

Dr. H 20:41

Wow. Yeah. I guess it's daily, I mean, those experiences popping up all the time. A lot of the students, God bless them, at their age of 18, haven't dealt with a lot of pain or suffering or or death and dying. So, you know, we try to we don't normally see a lot of that, but but we do see a good number of those scenarios. So we want to best prepare our students. So typically what I do is I'll I'll bring up scenarios prior to going in country of how to deal with people that are in chronic pain or or even acute pain, how to be there for them, how to support them. A lot of students are uncomfortable not knowing how to react. And I said, I tell them typically it's okay to cry if if you're if you're crying with the patient, if you're you know, if you're feeling uncomfortable sorry for them or or with them, it's okay to to hug or to hold them if you if if if it's appropriate at the time. And these are things that we we deal with prior to the travels. And and sure enough, it it happens in the clinical setting where a patient is very, very thankful and and and goes home and brings back a loaf of bread or something and is crying and wants to hug the patient, or hug the patient, hug the student, and the student reciprocates with the hug, and and they're crying with with the the patient also, or or or we'll find someone in in chronic pain from something that they didn't realize could be fixed, and we fix it for them, and the joys of tears from my students are just unbelievable.

Small Interventions, Big Impact: Eyeglasses

Dr. H 22:15

We one of the things we did with ISL was we we have a medical clinic, but we also bring donated eyeglasses. We don't do eye checks, but you've worked in diabetes for some time, you know that a lot of times diabetes causes a lot of visual problems. So we have a station at the end before the patient leaves the room where they go try on eyeglasses to see if they fit. And a couple of my students have been so excited when they see a patient try on a pair of eyeglasses and then they can actually read for the first time because they've never had an eye check or an ophthalmology visit. So extreme range of emotions from high highs of excited and happy to low lows of being there and and and helping them as much as it can when they're in pain and suffering. So we we try to prepare the students again for that, the range of experiences prior to the trip and and to help them to know that it's okay to be emotional and it's okay to be comfortable in that setting, and you're not going to look foolish in front of your friends because of that fact. And and that's very, very important because we want people to be genuine, and we want them to be genuine when they're working in the healthcare setting years later as a nurse or a doctor or a PA or whatever. So again, it's it's experiential education to the max. It's it's not only taking vital signs and learning more about their history, it's it's it's feeling their pain and their suffering and experiencing it with them. So it's uh very profound experiences. And and those happen daily. I mean, I could I could go on experience after experience, but pretty much in the daily setting of a of a clinic, we range, uh we go through that range of emotions.

Alida 23:59

Yeah, and I

One Bold Step: Go, And Go Often

Alida 24:00

mean I think it's super normal and valid to have those fearing feelings of uncomfort, especially at such a young age. And I'm speaking from experience as a volunteer in abroad, but I think it's super important to be okay with that and know that those feelings are really common. Anyways, I think the advice that you and ISL give to students is really beneficial and normalizes those emotions, which is really important as a volunteer. And then just to close off, I had one final question. If you had to give one piece of advice to someone considering volunteering in global health for the first time, what would it be?

Dr. H 24:34

I would say don't hesitate. I would say, I'd say gather all your friends together and and go do it. Life is short. You know, having been in healthcare for 45, 50 years, you know, when I went to nursing uh way back when there was people dying from heart attacks in their 60s or 70s. Well, now it's in their 20s and 30s. You know, we don't know if we have tomorrow. Tomorrow is a blessing. So I I always encourage my students to, you know, gather their friends up and and try to prepare them for the profound experience that it's going to be. Every one of my students to a T that's gone on my service learning trips has shared with their friends, family, and others how valuable that experience has been. For my students that are going on to med school, every one of them has shared with me that in the med school interview, the the topic of their service learning trip has always come up. It makes them stand out. Now they don't do the trip to stand out, of course, you know, for the med school interview, but the med school review board says, tell me about this service learning medical mission trip you went on. Oh my God, let me tell you about this experience I had. So I I don't say go on a trip because of that, but it does make you stand out, obviously, when you're going to graduate school. And it says a lot about you. You know, I'm I'm all about working on resumes and building resumes. You know, when I look at a resume and I see that someone's gone on a service learning trip to Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, wherever. I know that student went out of their comfort zone. I knew that student had there was some sacrifice, I know there was expense involved, I know there had to be family support. I know it it took them away if it was a spring trape, spring break trip, for example, it took them away from their cohort of friends who were probably on a beach in Florida having a lot of fun, but they're in the Dominican Republic in a clinic with no air conditioning, taking vital signs and helping people. So it it's a huge experience. It says a lot about the person. And I tell them, don't only go once, go often. And in my 20 plus years of doing this, I've had students from freshman through senior every year for the four years in their undergrad have gone on a service learning trip with me, and their their message was, I feel like I only put a band-aid on a big problem, I gotta go

Lifelong Service And Team Culture

Dr. H 26:55

back. The neat thing about that sentiment is when that student becomes a healthcare practitioner, and I've encouraged this with many of my students, in fact, when they become a doctor and they're comfortable in their practice, I always recommend shut your practice down for a week, take your whole staff and go to a rural area and render health care. And when you do that kind of stuff, your staff buy into who you are as an individual, that you are caring for people from the heart. You're not worried so much about the money. I mean, money's important, but most of the people that go on these service learning trips are not driven by finance. They're driven by how can I make a difference in this person's life? How can I be a voice for those that can't be heard? How can I help them and how can I pay it forward for other people to do what I've been doing? So a lot of lessons can be learned by going on a trip, and I could go on forever. But when someone asks about going on a trip, I always say, gather your friends. You know, where do you want to go? Let's go. And and if you want to go, I always encourage them to go to different areas. I mean, with international service learning, for example, we have a lot

Language, Connection, And Medical Spanish

Dr. H 28:05

of countries in Latin America which are beautiful, each country is very different, their customs or language. But we have Tanzania, we have India now, we have Cambodia. So I always share with my students that the more cultural experiences you you can get, the more languages that you can learn, the better a patient advocate you're going to be in the clinical setting when you're caring for people. It's amazing as a nurse when I walk into a clinical setting and I have a Hispanic patient and I can speak to them and go, hola, que tal, and their eyes just light up. Oh, you speak my language. I mean, it's not inherent that every healthcare provider has to speak a foreign language, but when you know a few words and you've been to their country, that makes a connection that you didn't have before, and that's huge.

Alida 28:53

Right. And in the eyes of people volunteers work with, if you had, for example, no Spanish experience, just saying hola to them can go a long way. And you know, this goes for them too. Like if they try to speak English to me, it means a lot to know that they're trying and that support goes both ways.

Dr. H 29:09

I agree. Making the effort is is huge, and I always appreciate that. Before my students go on the trip, I do a little class on medical Spanish and then international service learning also has Spanish phrase sheets. So it is kind of exciting when I see the students kind of tripping over their words, and the and the patients are so understanding, they they help them. By the end of the week, the the students are pretty comfortable with their basic Spanish, which is which is huge, and and I really appreciate that.

Alida 29:39

Yeah, and honestly, like I work with kids, and if we were to make a mistake in Spanish, they start laughing at us and it's no big deal.

Dr. H 29:46

I was gonna say the international language with kids is just smiles and hugs.

Alida 29:49

Yeah, I totally agree. That's a great way to put it. And thank you so much for that advice. That was super helpful, and I'll definitely keep that in mind as a volunteer and also just in general, because I think it's Super important in life. Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions and share your insights and stories with us today. I think your experience, both in the classroom and in the field, offers such a valuable perspective on what it truly means to serve safely, ethically, and with intention.

Dr. H 30:17

Yeah, Leah, thank you.

Closing Reflections And Book Mention

Alida 30:19

If you're interested in learning more about Dr. Hickey's travel experiences, check out his book, Seven Summits, a Nurse's Quest to Conquer Mountaineering in Life, available on Amazon, about Hickey's journey from rural hardships to becoming the first nurse to summit the highest peaks on all seven continents, blending themes of resilience, adventure, and the power of community.