Sutter Nursing Students to Treat and Learn in Laos

OAKLAND, Calif., August 4, 2008 – More than a dozen family nurse practitioner (FNP) students from Sutter Health affiliate Samuel Merritt College are traveling to northern Laos this month to provide free health care for Hmong villagers in the Southeast Asian country.

The students will be accompanied by four faculty members, led by associate professor Valerie Dzubur, EdD, FNP-C, “As a nursing educator, my job is to make a contribution to the development of a new generation of nurse practitioners.”

The two-week excursion – to local hospitals, orphanages, and villages in and around Vientiane, the capitol of Laos – is part of a new course called “Interpreting Healthcare in a Global World.” The one-unit elective is an opportunity for the FNP students to travel to places like Laos and Thailand to develop cultural understandings in international healthcare.
This is the third year the Oakland-based College has conducted the medical mission trip overseas. This year’s trip begins August 11th.

Along with providing free medical checkups, the program will support the local community. In recent trips, Dr. Dzubur, through work with the Windhorse Foundation, has helped build a preschool and sponsored a small orphanage. The foundation has also bought land in Thailand to create farming projects.

This year the FNP group is helping a local public hospital by buying them a gurney. In conjunction with medical supplies for the clinical screenings, the group also brings bags of clothing, books and vitamin supplements for the villagers.

About Samuel Merritt College
Samuel Merritt College, originally founded in 1909, is a fully accredited health sciences institution located in Oakland, California. Samuel Merritt offers degrees in nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, and podiatric medicine. Samuel Merritt College is an affiliate of Sutter Health and Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center. For more information, visit www.samuelmerritt.edu

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Elizabeth Valente, Samuel Merritt College
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EValente@SamuelMerritt.edu