Dominican Republic: Virtual Internships

SUSTAINING GROWTH THROUGH VIRTUAL INTERNSHIPS

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS PLAY A VALUABLE role in the Judy Genshaft Honors College community. Since 2016, we have partnered with the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic to support health education and mobile clinics in rural Dominican communities while providing community-engagement opportunities for honors students. Over the past five years, more than 200 students have participated in this partnership, and although international travel ceased for a time, the collaboration continued to thrive through the initiation of a virtual internship program.

In 2021, twenty-two students worked with Dr. Reginald Kerolle, founder of the Kerolle Initiative, to shadow and scribe for physicians, talk with community members about health issues, learn about the social determinants of health in Dominican communities, and deliver health lessons to children, all through the use of laptops and phones. Virtual internship sessions ran for four weeks at a time, but some interns continued to develop projects well beyond the boundaries of their internship course. In the spring semester, the Global Health Initiatives class collaborated with Kerolle interns and the Kosove Scholars Program to collect and ship needed items to the Kerolle Initiative. Among these items were clear facemasks for use by deaf community members and a Spanish cookbook developed for pregnant women in low-income communities. These were projects of Kerolle interns, Maha Uppal and Aditi Parashar, who continue to be engaged in the organization’s work.

Some Honors students have been planning to travel to the Dominican Republic since 2019 and received their chance in December 2021 when they finally met Dr. Kerolle and his team of community health advocates in person. (See story on next page).

“The virtual internship gave me a solid foundation of Dominican culture, history, and public health; and going to the D.R. gave me a deeper understanding of what I was doing virtually,” explained Honors student Julia Girgis. “Traveling allowed me to bump fists, hear stories, see homes and communities, play tag with children, give water to babies, labor as the people I met labored, and enjoy life as the people I met enjoyed life.”

- Dr. Lindy Davidson

Since 2016 the Judy Genshaft Honors College has partnered with the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic. In 2021, 22 students worked with Dr. Kerolle in a variety of health-care roles all via laptops and phones.

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

Left: Dr. Kerolle, founder of the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic.

Right: Honors student Julia Girgis, right, works in a pharmacy in rural Dominican Republic with Dr. Kerolle (left).