By Ryan Otteson | Reporter
In the past, the pre-health honor society, Alpha Epsilon Delta, has done a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, however, this year they are headed to South Africa instead. AED is an organization that strives to cultivate the students’ hearts for service, give them experience in the medical world and grow closer together as a group. This year AED is partnering with the Medical Service Organization for their trip.
Baltimore senior Annie Lodge serves as the mission trip chair for AED.
“My goal with leadership in the mission trip was to increase AED’s excitement about going on the mission trip because in the past few years we didn’t have a trip because of COVID for a long time, and so getting it reintroduced has been a little bit of a challenge,” Lodge said.
Lodge said this is because many members are involved in other organizations that go on mission trips, but she would love for the AED one to specifically grow. The trip will be in May because many pre-health students are doing school related activities such as studying for the Medical College Admissions Test over spring break.
“We thought, ‘Hey, let’s change it up and try South Africa and see,’ and it did work because we have more AED members going on the trip this year so that’s super exciting,” Lodge said.
Since this is considered a medical mission trip, students get a close-up look at what healthcare looks like in a foreign country. Dallas senior Liana Vuu was another student on last year’s trip to the Dominican Republic and is planning on attending the 2025 trip to South Africa. On the trip, students split into groups so they are able to provide multiple services at once.
“We would rotate the different stations almost each day so then one group would be going to the hospital and then another group would be going to the clinic and then we’d have one group at the ministry site,” Vuu said.
Vuu and other students were able to see procedures in the hospitals in the Dominican Republic such as a cesarean section, but also were able to see how they impacted the people who were not in the hospital. The students played with kids at the ministry site and assembled food packets for the community there.
“One of the elders in the community, she came and hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I was just like ‘We are actually making a difference,’” Lodge said.
