Trinity students volunteer time with WPP

Instead of hitting the beaches after hours of beating the books, some students from the Trinity School of Medicine use their spare time to volunteer at the local office of the World Pediatric Project (WPP).

The students, over the past few weeks, have been busy preparing inventory and packing away medical items on newly built shelves at the organization’s Bentick Square office in Kingstown for the visit, next month, of a team of urologists .{{more}}

Last week, three of the volunteers: Katie Carson, Michele Young and Ben Daggett, said it was an honour to volunteer with an organization that goes all out to give medical care and attention to critically ill children in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the rest of the Caribbean region.

“You get few opportunities to be involved with such a great organization as the WPP and when they come to do their missions we get to work with them further with the children and in the operating rooms; so as future physicians, it’s an amazing experience,” Ben said.

“I feel like the things that the WPP is accomplishing is part of why I decided to be a doctor in the first place and why I decided to be a part of this; so that’s why I enjoy doing this. You have your head in a book all the time, so it’s good to be still involved in your passion which is medicine, but in a different way,” Michele added.

The students, all from the United States, said they heard about the work of the WPP its awareness and fund-raising drive here in SVG from Simon Carey, the organization’s local chief development officer.

“When we heard about it, there was no hesitation to come on board, so here we are,” Katie stated. Her sentiments were also shared by Killian Harrelson, Nicole Diaz, Lindsey Martinez, Kaye Linda Heiner, and Julie-Katia Mon-Major, other WPP volunteers.

The WPP has been operating in St Vincent and the Grenadines since 2002, when the programme was introduced to this country by the Rotary Club South under the name International Children’s Hospital.

To date the project has screened thousands of Vincentian and Caribbean children and performed procedures on hundreds more, here and in the United States.

The volunteers say that they are not only proud to be assisting the local WPP, but also happy to be studying on as beautiful an island as St Vincent and the Grenadines.

When time affords, they take in as much of the tropical paradise as possible, but remain focussed on their goal, which is to become the next generation of medical practitioners, whether in their country or elsewhere.

“There’s time for the beach, but if you get into something that you have that passion for… I would rather go stand in the surgery room for hours than go to the beach any day, but when you study here and the hospital is not too far from the beach, you get the best of both worlds; you don’t have to choose,” Michele joked.

Carey thanked the volunteers for their unwavering service and lauded them for their dedication.

“These guys are amazing; you can tell from the way they worked to get things in order.

“The future of medicine is in good hands and I can envision in the future, some of these same guys would be world leading pediatricians and who knows, maybe they would end up with the WPP and find themselves here in Vincy on one of the missions.

“We are always open to volunteers and looking forward to working further with the Trinity School of Medicine and any other individual, group or institution that is willing to spread the word and works of the WPP further,” Carey said.