SU Students Roll Up Sleeves for HOPE

SU students roll up sleeves for HOPE

By Jason Kane
The Winchester Star
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Millwood, VA — In four years of medical school, John Hammill had seen some stomach-turning things.

Elephantitis, for example.

The condition, which causes a massive swelling of the lower extremities, is often pictured in medical books — but Hammill never thought he would see it in person. It’s curable and nearly nonexistent in the United States.
 
Shenandoah pharmacy student John Hammill poses with local children at the Niu ui Hospital in Tonga.
Photo provided by Project Hope
 
Fast-forward to summer 2009, when Hammill was standing on an island in the South Pacific, filling prescriptions to cure a man with legs the size of tree trunks.

He was one of three fourth-year pharmacy students at Shenandoah University to participate in the school’s first partnership with the international nonprofit organization Project HOPE.

Based in the Clarke County community of Millwood, HOPE — Health Opportunities for People Everywhere — has been recruiting area volunteers for global missions since the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.

The Navy and HOPE have since joined forces on 14 missions. Until now, though, the area’s volunteers have mainly been drawn from Winchester Medical Center personnel.

Knowing other qualified individuals in the area might like to help, HOPE officials contacted the Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy at SU.

After an application and selection process, three candidates were informed of their upcoming adventures.

First up was Elizabeth Johnson, who boarded the USNS Comfort in the Caribbean Sea for six weeks as part of the Continuing Promise 2009 mission.

Hammill followed from June 31 to Aug. 1 in the Western Samoa islands, aboard the USNS Richard E. Byrd, and Stephen Creasy completed the third leg on the same ship from Aug. 1 to Sept. 14.

HOPE President and Chief Executive Officer John Howe III had reason to believe in the healing power young people can bring to strangers in the South Pacific.

As a recent medical school graduate in the 1960s, Howe was in charge of ensuring that the supply needs of an intensive care unit in the Marshall Islands were met.

He still remembers its effect on his life.

“There’s a tremendous outpouring of feeling from helping those in great need,” Howe said. “And there is something transformative when people from various platforms come together for a common cause.”

Forty years later, Hammill’s experience would prove to be quite similar.

The 27-year-old learned he had been selected for the experience in April, and by early July, was flying toward the South Pacific. After a quick tour of the USNS Byrd, Hammill was told to pack his bags for a five-day stint on the island of Savai’i.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, a team of doctors, dentists, optometrists and other specialists from the Navy vessel saw and treated patients.

On a slow day, Hammill and pharmacist John Nett filled 100 to 200 prescriptions. When things got busy, they topped out at 700.

Conditions at the sites were “pretty rudimentary,” Hammill said.

 
Shenandoah University volunteers Alla Marks and Stephen Creasy pose for a portrait during their visit to the Solomon Islands with Project HOPE. The USNS Richard E. Byrd is in the background.
Photo provided by Project HOPE
 
The rooms were hot, humid, and cramped — not the best atmosphere for fragile pharmaceuticals. “We were doing our best to maintain proper storage conditions, but you can only do so much.”

The patients had nearly every kind of ailment. One teenage boy came with a fungal infection so severe he couldn’t hold a pencil or attend school.

“It was a common condition that had gotten a lot worse,” Hammill said. “And we were able to provide a definitive treatment. While we didn’t get to see the results — just the potential of turning this kid’s life around was amazing.”

The doctors and pharmacists tried to provide treatment that would either heal the patients or prescribe medication that could easily be obtained on the islands after the USNS Byrd departed.

At the end of July, the ship sailed to New Caledonia, where Hammill boarded a plane bound for the United States.

That same day, SU student Stephen Creasy and SU pharmacy professor Alla Marks arrived.

They sailed to the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands, providing two weeks of outreach per country.

Creasy said he was struck most by the stoicism of the people in those nations. The children didn’t cry even when they were having their teeth pulled, he said.

He most remembers the difficulties in communication, especially trying to teach non-English speakers how to use an inhaler.

But despite the language barrier, the SU students completed the project, having written a combined 10,000 prescriptions.

As many pills as were left behind, Creasy said the students came out better after the experience, too.

“It seems like we go so fast when we work,” he said. “It showed me that we need to slow down and make sure people understand what we’re telling them.”

Whether in Winchester or the Western Samoa islands — or any where in between — that’s a lesson Creasy said he plans to take with him to any pharmacy he operates.