If you ask most students how they spent winter break, chances are they will say that they spent time with friends and family, worked at a job back home, or perhaps simply took the opportunity to relax after a long week of finals. For 16 juniors, however, one week of their break was dedicated to an important cause: providing healthcare to citizens in Costa Rica.

The trip, which served as the clinical portion of the nursing course “Community and Public Health,” was led by Professors Pamela Preston and Margaret Carson. From Jan. 7 to 15, Professor Preston says, “The nursing students set-up, interviewed, assessed, and provided education to the patients and their families. Our patients ranged from infants to elderly, most living in poverty with very limited resources and access to care.” In three separate locations, the group provided health services to those in need of aid.

“I felt honored to have been given the opportunity to provide free healthcare to those who cannot afford it,” says junior nursing major Kristen DeCoste. The relative ease with which most Saint Anselm students receive healthcare served as a constant reminder to the disparity between the two places. After all, the office of Health Services is just a quick walk away, and the closest hospital is only eight minutes down the road. For most students, who have grown up with easy-access healthcare and know nothing else, it is easy to take these comforts for granted.

Though the experience was doubtlessly sobering, DeCoste also speaks of the trip’s positive outcome on the way she now sees and thinks.

“Although being exposed to such poverty may seem unsettling for some, I have learned from this experience and will allow this new perspective to shape my thoughts and actions throughout my nursing career,” DeCoste states. “I am more aware of healthcare conditions that exist beyond my four walls and the roof over my head.”

Because of her trip to Costa Rica, DeCoste and the 15 other students may now employ their knowledge of the field in their future careers. It is safe to say that the trip had a lasting effect on the students involved – but the week had much further reaching effects as well.

DeCoste describes the areas they visited as “poverty-stricken” and “with little or no access to health care.” And yet, she says, “Despite the hardships that the community members face every day, I have never met such kind-hearted, welcoming individuals.” Similarly, Professor Preston stated, “The people that we met were so warm, gracious, and thankful.”

By reaching out a helping hand, the group portrayed one of the foundations of Saint Anselm College – strong community values. Though the students may not live in Costa Rica, communities come in all shapes and sizes, and the planet we share is certainly one of them. In traveling to foreign parts of the world, the students and professors involved got the chance not only to benefit themselves, but others as well. In light of the recent holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”