The Dominican Republic clinics were hardly a high-tech place to provide care. The team set up makeshift care sites in village schools. Electricity and running water were scarce. People waited in line for hours to get treatment for conditions from diabetes to parasites. The clinic had 100 people waiting the first day. Few patients spoke English. Many hadn’t seen a dentist ever or in years. In the makeshift clinic, UCF medical and nursing students and şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Florida pharmacy students worked with their faculty and community providers to triage patients and get them through various treatment stations, including internal medicine, OB-GYN and dental.

Electronic records that could be easily completed, searched and analyzed gave the healthcare providers needed information quickly. Just as important, the new system helped students see the progress of their patients – especially because so many were repeat visitors from a year ago.

“A couple of the patients I saw in internal med and pediatrics were actually repeating patients from last year and I can pull up records from last year. I can see what medications we gave them, see what they came in for last year,” said Kim after one day’s clinic where he saw patients and handled the IT network. “We can see what we did wrong or what we did well and really have a foundation for taking care of patients in terms of continuity of care.”

Before coming to medical school in 2014, Kim was a software designer at Epic, an electronic health record system. As the “IT guy,” Kim taught physicians how to use new technology, heard their complaints and often had to convince them that using electronic records were worth the effort. He said he took that feedback into consideration when he developed the UCF system.

He wanted the system to be easy to use, especially for young medical students who are also learning patient care techniques – and medical Spanish. For that reason, he included Spanish translations for each diagnosis so students who are all not fluent could pick up easier on what their patients were saying. He created fields that could be filled out using drop-down menus rather than requiring students to type out information at length. And he created key word search functions so future research can be done on patient trends.

“What I did was allow doctors to put information into the system and make those data points searchable so we can go back and look into the system and search all encounters and really search specifics, like certain number of diabetic patients or pediatric patients coming in with asthma,” said Kim.

Electronic health records are becoming essential tools for tracking health outcomes and best practices in patient care, especially as America’s healthcare system transitions to reimbursing doctors for the quality of their care rather than the number of patient visits. The use of such systems is in international medical mission trips is relatively new and Kim hopes to help UCF become a leader in using electronic records for research and improving the quality of care in underserved areas.

“UCF is at the forefront of this movement,” said Kim who hopes to share his new software with other universities.

Another goal of the electronic system is to better understand if the medical mission trips are improving the health of the impoverished population over time. Sustainability is a key issue for organizers, who want to be sure the medical mission trips provide tangible improvements for residents – not just a great learning experience for students.

“The patients report the education and care we provide are important.” said Dr. Judy Simms Cendan, assistant professor at the College of Medicine, director of global health initiatives, and the faculty member who lead the medical mission team. “We want to be able to track our patients’ health and understand how environmental and social issues are affecting their health. We also want to determine if our outreach programs are making a difference, and if so, in what way.

In the future the team hopes to also use the records to share information with the few local physicians near the villages and expand the type of care they provide by understanding the community’s health trends.

The Diebel Legacy Fund of Central Florida Foundation – a long-time supporter of the medical mission trip – donated $10,000 to fund travel scholarships for the medical students to encourage and support volunteer medical initiatives to help the underserved.

To see a video version of this story, visit

Anticipation was high as the group reached an elementary school that would serve as the day’s makeshift clinic for a rural village 30 minutes from the city. College of Medicine faculty member Dr. Judy Simms-Cendan led the 49-person medical mission team July 23-31, the fourth trip she has made as director of the college’s global health initiatives.

This year’s team was the largest to date and included UCF medical, nursing and engineering students, şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Florida pharmacy students, their faculty, community dentists and doctors, and a pastor. During the eight days, the team cared for 864 patients, 300 more than last year, in six impoverished communities with virtually no health care services. And they worked together, bringing to life the team approach to care that Simms-Cendan and others model at the medical school.

“We have learners at different levels, fourth years (students) teaching second years, faculty from various backgrounds and community practitioners to help our students see and learn on their feet and see the relevance of what they’ve learned in the classroom,” said Simms-Cendan.

The interprofessional approach to medicine is also something that health experts in the United States have been advocating more and more to help enhance patient care. The trip to the Dominican Republic offered UCF students a chance to live that team approach in some very trying conditions.

The elementary classrooms-turned clinic rooms were dark and sparsely furnished so the team brought in its own generator to ensure constant electricity for light, dental compressors and the iPads they used for completing electronic health records. The goal is to track patients, assess their progress year after year and keep records of medications. The information will be useful for future visiting medical teams needing patients’ medical histories.

To see a video about the team’s visit

Second-year medical student and trip coordinator Camille Carre led the day’s activities by organizing teams of interprofessional students and faculty who rotated through the different rooms set up to deal with triage, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN, dental, patient education and the pharmacy.

More than 100 people were already waiting to be seen when the medical team arrived the first day. Their complaints ran from aches and pains to diabetes and parasites. “There’s nothing like this trip to truly open your eyes to the medical needs here,” Carre said.

Fourth-year medical student Neesha Patel, who was on her second trip to the island, partnered with younger students to triage and assess patients. “It’s wonderful to see how the trip has grown in two years,” she said.

One of the new services offered to locals this year was dental care, provided by five Sarasota dentists who performed procedures from cleanings to extractions. As Patel helped patients and taught students, dentist Dr. Janet Alberti-Bailey explained how poor diet and high sugar consumption were impacting residents’ teeth. One of the first procedures of the day was a tooth extraction performed by oral surgeon Dr. Scott Middleton while students watched and learned. The interprofessional aspect of the learning and teaching is something Simms-Cendan stresses.

“We have medical and nursing students enjoying the opportunity to see dental care. It’s anatomy and surgery, which they wouldn’t ordinarily get exposed to and would never happen unless it’s on a trip like this,” Simms-Cendan said.

Faculty members hope the interdisciplinary training helps build teamwork “muscle memory” that students will take into their future careers.

Among the community physicians who volunteered were Dr. David Simmons, an internist, and his wife, Chaplain Linda Simmons, who offered pastoral counseling. “The Dominican people are very spiritual,” said Simms-Cendan. “They don’t always have people to discuss their problems with and often it’s easier to talk to a stranger than to a family member about personal problems.”

While the medical team cared for patients, five UCF engineering students from Engineers Without Borders and their faculty advisor, Jesse Berdis from NASA, met with local leaders about the village’s biggest infrastructure need – a bridge to cross the river that runs through the community. When waters are high, the river isolates residents and is treacherous to cross. During their visits, the engineers surveyed the land and took soil samples to gauge the stability of the rocky soil bed for future construction.

“It’s amazing that in a few years, this community will have a bridge,” said UCF engineering student Becca Shea. The team analyzed the area to design the best type of bridge that will be cost-effective to build and easy to maintain.

As the week progressed, the health care students grew more confident in working together, using their medical Spanish and providing care even with limited space, equipment and drugs.

“I got valuable practice taking histories and giving advice,” said second-year student Daniel Stehli, “I got to diagnose a woman with diabetes and truly helped her start to turn her health around. It doesn’t get more real than that.”

The students raised  money for the trip months in advance and collected donated supplies and medications. The Diebel Legacy Fund of Central Florida Foundation – a long-time supporter of the medical mission trip – donated $10,000 to fund travel scholarships for the medical students to encourage and support volunteer medical initiatives to help the underserved.

The students are getting ready for the annual trip led by Dr. Judy Simms-Cendan, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of international experiences for the .

Since 2010, the program has grown from medical school faculty and students to include College of Nursing participants, and this year has expanded to include şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Florida pharmacy students and faculty, as well as UCF Engineers without Borders. The engineering students are led by NASA engineer Drew Horn and will work directly with engineers from the Universidad CatĂłlica Nordestana in the Dominican Republic to assess water supply, sanitation and transportation at the impoverished villages the team will visit. Such infrastructure needs have a direct effect on health, and engineers hope to suggest improvements that will support the communities.

For the first time, this trip will also include a chaplain – Linda Simmons, who is joining her physician husband, Dr. David Simmons. Dr. Simms-Cendan invited the couple because she saw the need to address resident’s mental health as well as their physical needs.

“The people of the Dominican Republic are very spiritual and it’s going to be incredibly helpful to have someone able to counsel them on areas of domestic violence and poverty from a spiritual perspective, “said Dr. Simms-Cendan. Cultural taboos prevent many women from discussing sexual abuse and she hopes this will give women and young girls a chance to talk freely in a private and safe setting.

The team of about 40, which includes eight supervising faculty, is making final preparations for the trip with planning meetings, medical Spanish language classes and training on the use of the electronic health record system medical school students created to better track care and health outcomes.

Rising second year student Faith Villanueva is one of trip’s organizers and believes the learning experience will make a big impact on all her classmates and is grateful for the support they have received. Twenty of the medical students received $500 scholarships from the International Medical Samaritans Program Scholarship sponsored by the Diebel Legacy Fund at Central Florida Foundation to help cover travel lodging and meals.

“This scholarship is incredibly meaningful to me because it gave us the flexibility to offer highly qualified students an international service opportunity that might otherwise be out of reach,” Villanueva said.

With this year’s large group, coordination and clinic flow is going to be key to seeing hundreds of patients in a limited amount of time. Five returning fourth-year students including Teresa Martin-Carreras and Heather McKently will help facilitate the clinics and are eager to help mentor the group and pass on their cultural and clinical knowledge.

During the weeklong trip, the team expects to see more than 900 patients and will travel to the same six villages they visited in previous years in some of the poorest rural areas near San Francisco de Macoris. Dr. Simms-Cendan sees the trip as a vital part of interprofessional training for the soon-to-be doctors. “ I want students to connect with the people on a personal and cultural level and be able to adapt to their surroundings, and they get to set up an entire clinic and work as a team,” she said.

Her presentation will address the question, “What does it take:

Dr. Nutt is certified in family medicine and completed a sub-specialization in women’s health through the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Toronto as a Women’s Health Scholar. She has received numerous honorary doctorates from universities in the United States and Canada. She is a staff physician at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto and is an assistant professor of medicine at the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Toronto. She is executive director of War Child Canada/War Child USA. In her book, “Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies, and Aid,” she explains how “we are all a part of war,” through investments, commercial and other choices and how people can reduce civilian suffering by their choices.

“Dr. Nutt has witnessed the horrific suffering of civilians in wars across the globe. By sharing her journey at the College of Medicine, I hope she can help us all understand how we can better care for each other as global citizens,” said Dr. Judy Simms-Cendan, director of the medical school’s international health programs.

Dr. Nutt’s presentation will run from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Lewis Auditorium (Room 102) of the medical education building and be followed by a reception and refreshments.

“Social Responsibility & Global Health” is part of UCF International Education Week and is sponsored by the UCF College of Health and Public Affairs’ International Affairs Committee, the UCF College of Medicine and the Diebel Legacy Fund.

The UCF healthcare team included 20 medical students (16 rising second-year students and four rising fourth-year students), four rising four-year nursing students, a student in computer science and a premed student. They worked with medical students from Universidad Catolica Nordestana — the medical school in San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic that works in partnership with the UCF College of Medicine.

The interprofessional approach to medical education provided an opportunity for all the students to learn medical teamwork and how to set up a clinic from the ground up and begin seeing patients in just 30 minutes. By working together, the medical and nursing students also learned to set up and run a pharmacy, provide patient education on subjects including hygiene and first aid, and practice their Spanish language skills. Dr. Simms-Cendan said the nursing students taught the M.D. students about patient flow, cleanliness and sanitation. The medical students taught the nursing students about epidemiology, pathology and other basic science information about the conditions they saw.

“We said throughout the trip how we all brought unique skills to the table,” she said.

The clinics were located in elementary schools in rural communities of the Dominican Republic. And students saw the impact of poverty on health – patients suffering from severe intestinal conditions because of unclean drinking water and food, and untreated cuts and scrapes that became infected and in need of serious care.  Primary care including treatment of hypertension, diabetes and dermatologic conditions was provided. The dedicated pediatrics team cared for issues of nutrition, ear infections, and asthma. The team also faced many psychosocial effects of poverty. For example, domestic violence is another serious problem in the Dominican Republic, which lacks shelters or other resources for women.

Partners in both the Dominican Republic and Central Florida contribute to the success of the Dominican Republic trip. To help the area, the Rotary Club of La Joya has installed working toilets in communities over the past year, which has greatly improved hygiene and living conditions.  They are very interested in partnering with our team next year for even more community education. Clean The World, a non-profit Orlando organization that recycles soaps and shampoo from local hotels, provided 400 hygiene packages for patients with financial assistance from the Edith Bush Charitable Foundation. The Diebel Legacy Fund provided financial aid for the medical students, paying for much of their airfare.

Faculty members included volunteer College of Medicine faculty Dr. Rafik Bouaziz and Dr. Alix Casler, and Dr. Laura Gonzalez from the College of Nursing, who Dr. Simms-Cendan described as “the goddess of triage who was able to care for hundreds of people a day and educate students all at the same time. We absolutely couldn’t have done this without her.”