Students Head to Kenya for Clinical Work

Five students from Kent State University are in the midst of the trip of a lifetime, as today they're working in a clinic on the east coast of Africa.

Bill Wallace, Samantha Pecnik, Patrick Gorby, Laura Bevington and Olivia Hartman are traveling via Bonyo's Kenya Mission to contribute their medical skills to the Mama Pilista Bonyo Memorial Health Centre, which was established in 2006 by Akron doctor Bonyo Bonyo.

The students, all of whom are in the graduate program in Kent State's College of Public Health, each lend their specific talents to the clinic, which serves a rural population outside Kisumu in Kisumu Province, Kenya.

Bevington, 23, a public health policy student, will spend her time in the clinic's pharmacy.

"I think it's going to be a great opportunity to help people over there as well as gain some knowledge and experience for myself," she said.

Each year, Bonyo's Kenya Mission has arranged for trips to the clinic for medical students from the Northeast Ohio area.

This year Wallace worked with fellow Kent State student Zach Thoren to organize and raise money for the trip.

Wallace spent three weeks working at the clinic, surrounded by endless acres of rice fields, in November 2011 and fell in love with the altruistic endeavor.

"It's kind of like (Ohio) Amish country where the clinic is," he said. "It is tropical, but it's not as lush and green as I envisioned it."

The students raised the money for their flights and other trip preparations, such as vaccinations, themselves.

At the clinic, they'll mostly be seeing patients treating minor afflictions such as non life-threatening injuries, malaria cases and infections. They also will assist in live births. Three of the students left this weekend and two more will follow in June.

In Kenya, they'll stay in a western-style hotel with hot water twice daily and indoor plumbing. But they won't have air conditioning and will have to sleep under mosquito nets.

Thoren said originally they planned to take a film crew on this year's trip to create a documentary, but the film crew became unavailable at the last minute and they had to scrap the video.

He said he's hopeful to make the trip next year.