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Rhona Galera, MS, CCC-SLP, says she has an "intrinsic motivation for service." This is one of the many reasons why she decided to share her speech-language pathology skills on medical mission trips to the Philippines and Ecuador.
Galera's family emigrated from the Philippines when she was young. Growing up in a Seventh-Day Adventist church community instilled the importance of charity work outreach, said Galera, a clinical doctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. When she decided to take her charitable works overseas, Galera set out to help speech-language pathologists in her birth country.
Medical mission trips typically last 10 days to two weeks. While in the Philippines and Ecuador, Galera collaborated and assisted medical team members with the speech-language pathologists in the country.
After seeing patients back to back on the first day, she decided to coordinate therapy for the rest of the week. Galera also focused her time on parent education,enabling them to become their own speech therapists. Stimulating speech and language development of their child is important because the medical mission team is only a temporary resource.
In Ecuador, she performed some nasal endoscopies and helped physicians determine which patients were candidates for surgery. In the Philippines, Galera not only had the chance to help many patients, she got to see where she was from. She met relatives she had never seen before and saw her parents' hometown, where they got married, and the hospital where she was born. Her first medical outreach opportunity in the Philippines was important to her cultural heritage.
Later, while traveling to Ecuador, she was able to help a mother in need. "She had concerns with respect to feeding her 9-month-old baby, who had a bilateral cleft lip and palate," Galera recalled. "She said she had two other children who had passed away. From the sound of her description, they passed away from aspiration and pneumonia because she didn't know how to feed the baby. So we were able to counsel her on how to feed her 9-month-old."
Medical mission trips need speech-language pathologists who specialize in a variety of areas, including cleft lip and palate, fluency, augmentative and alternative communication, pediatric feeding, and audiological services.
"SLPs and audiologists can also provide outreach services, not just on medical missions in other countries, but also within less fortunate communities in the Unites States that lack education, advanced training, materials and resources," she added.
Some clinicians who participate in medical mission trips may experience a culture shock, Galera said. "The language and culture are different and so are the medical and clinical facilities. In addition, there is a lack of equipment."
Before leaving on a trip, speech-language pathologists and audiologists should learn about the people, culture, language, and country they will be working in. "You also need to know the group of medical professionals you are teaming with," she noted. "You need to know who they are and what everyone does so you can work collaboratively as a team."
Clinicians also need to be culturally sensitive to patients and keep ethical considerations in mind. Because medical missions are generally a temporary resource, speech-language pathologists need to take the initiative to provide education to the host clinicians or medical professionals for ongoing follow-up, which is a major ethical concern for practicing U.S. clinicians.
Individuals derive many benefits from participating in medical mission trips. "For me, it was providing and sharing education and empowering individuals who do not have that education," Galera said. "Enabling and empowering them in their communities is a great reward."
She said the information and experience she is able to share would not have been possible without the educational programs she attended and her supervisors, colleagues, mentors, and local communities in California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania that taught her how to be an altruistic speech-language pathologist and a specialist in cleft palate and craniofacial care.
"I'd also like to thank the nonprofit organizations that allowed me the opportunity to participate on medical mission teams: Operation Smile and Faces of Tomorrow with Smile Train sponsorship," she said. She also appreciates working with and thanked the local speech therapists and all the patients with their families in the Philippines and Quito Ecuador.
Amanda Koehler is a freelance writer. She can be reached at amanda.e.koehler@gmail.com.
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