Dr. Faith Claman, associate professor of nursing, volunteered for her first medical mission trip when she was 18, an experience that helped chart her career path as a pediatric and women\u0092s health care nurse practitioner. She\u0092s now racked up more than 30 years of experience delivering health care to vulnerable populations here and abroad. She even celebrated her 50th birthday with a mission trip to Peru! On the home front, she maintains a practice at the Arlington Health Department and the Arlington Free Clinic.<\/p>\n
For Marymount nursing students, Claman\u0092s experience gives added dimension to their service learning trips as she deftly helps them navigate unfamiliar circumstances. Claman, who earned a bachelor\u0092s degree from Duke, a master\u0092s from Yale and a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Case Western Reserve, has led students on trips to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in this hemisphere. They provide services like prenatal home visits with expecting mothers, mobile clinics, diabetes education and pop-up health clinics in people\u0092s bedrooms and kitchens, often in homes with dirt floors. The immersion experiences give undergraduates and graduate students the chance to live, learn, and work together.<\/p>\n
\u0093They all bring different strengths and assets they don\u0092t even know they have until they get there,\u0094 Claman says. \u0093They\u0092re improvising, creating and developing ways to deliver compassionate and evidence-based care from a makeshift environment.\u0094<\/p>\n
This can include using elastic gloves as tourniquets when drawing blood, hammering nails in walls when IV poles aren\u0092t available to hang fluid bags from, or hanging sheets from the ceilings in old schools to provide private areas for gynecological exams.<\/p>\n
Claman and a Marymount team return to Nicaragua each summer. She loves the patients and staff there, and working alongside students, especially during the \u0091aha moments\u0092 when they fully understand what it means to give service to others and make a difference in their lives.<\/p>\n
\u0093I come back every year and feel transformed,\u0094 Claman says. \u0093The students impact my life tremendously, and I feel grateful that I get to experience this.\u0094
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Dr. Faith Claman, associate professor of nursing, volunteered for her first medical mission trip when she was 18, an experience that helped chart her career path as a pediatric and women\u0092s health care nurse practitioner. She\u0092s now racked up more than 30 years of experience delivering health care to vulnerable populations here and abroad. She […]<\/p>\n