“Her family was very poor and upon talking to them, we learned they hadn’t seen their neurologist in at least two or three years and probably wouldn’t see him for a long while after this.
“As we talked, we figured it was probably that she was just growing up and needs to up her medicine. It’s an easy fix for people here (in the United States) but not there where access is so difficult. So we did what we could.”
The only medical treatment the girl got came early last month when Edwards and two other Flyers athletes also studying to be doctors – women’s soccer player Sarah Byrne and men’s soccer player Aidan Bean – joined 57 other Dayton students who used part of their recent winter break from classes to do work with Global Brigades in Nicaragua.
An international non-profit organization made up of volunteer chapters from colleges and clubs across the United States, Canada and four European nations, Global Brigades empowers communities in developing countries in Central America and West Africa – most notably Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and Ghana – to deal with some of their health and economic situations.
In this most recent nine-day trip, the UD contingent worked alongside medical professionals and local townspeople around the village of Las Mangas, which is in the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua, 50 miles north of the capital city of Managua.
Depending on the need, Global Brigade groups provide help in 10 different areas: everything from medical and dental to engineering, environmental, water and human rights.
“This year we started with a public health brigade,’’ said Byrne, who was making her third trip with the organization. “We mixed cement and created sanitary stations that included showers, wash areas and toilets and we put in a septic tank to collect the waste products.
“In trips past, we mixed cement to create floors for their houses. The floors they had were dirt and the people picked up a lot of parasites from that. By providing a floor, we could reduce the number of medical issues that communities have when they live and sleep in the dirt.”
The group also did medical work, setting up a triage center, where Bean said they served 400 people one day.
“Some of the people had walked all day just to get there and then stood in line in the sun for four hours waiting for their turn,” Bryne said. “We get their vitals and other information and then they can go on to see a doctor or the dentist who are volunteering there.”
While the UD students shadow medical professionals, Bryne said they also talk to the local people “about healthy habits like brushing their teeth, healthy eating and sex (education) for adults.
“A lot of the the medications that we give out (under the direction of a licensed pharmacist) are actually things we can get over the counter back here at home – stuff like Advil and vitamins – but to them, because they have no access to any of this, it’s like a miracle and they are so appreciative.”
Edwards – a 205-pound linebacker for the Flyers who is a pre-med major and often finds himself taxed by the demands of both pursuits – said he came back from the trip appreciative, as well:
“When you’re at school doing your undergrad work, it’s easy sometimes to have all these questions and doubts. You’re like: ‘Why? What’s the point of doing this? Is it worth it? This is hard. It sucks! I should have switched to something easier.’
“Then you go on a trip like this and you come back and it literally pushes every doubt you had about being a physician – and wanting to help people like that on a daily basis – out of your mind for sure.
“It reminds you why you wanted to go into medicine in the first place.”
Finding a balance at UD
Edwards came to UD from Mason High School. Bean’s from Olentangy Liberty High in Powell, outside of Columbus, and Byrne graduated from Ursuline Academy in Cincinnati.
Each was a talented prep athlete and a good student and they all said they decided UD was the place they could further develop in both of those areas.
“I didn’t want to go to a school just to play sports,” said Byrne. “If for some reason I couldn’t play soccer, I wanted to be at a university that would help me in my career path. I felt UD had the whole package. I loved the soccer program under Coach (Mike) Tucker and it’s a great school for academics.”
A senior defender for the Flyers, Byrne, to date, has had the most accomplished college athletic career of the trio. She played in 53 games and started 41.
A biology major who is a member of the premed honor society at UD, she also works in one of the research labs on campus
“We’re studying Alzheimer’s disease in fruit flies,” she said. “The human genome and the fly’s genome are very similar when it comes to the disease.”
A redshirt junior defender whose dad played soccer at Wright State and Miami University – and whose grandfather was a Miami football player – Bean said the Global Brigade involvement offers one way to escape what he calls “The Bubble of UD.”
As he explained: “Sometimes we’re very isolated as athletes. You’re always doing something with the other guys on the team and you don’t always associate with many other people on campus. And all of us at UD (athletes and non-athletes) can end up living in what I call that’ UD Bubble.’
“It was the same back home in Powell. I called it ‘The Powell Bubble’. We were a small community where everybody was pretty much the same and that’s where most of our (interactions) were. Here at UD it can be like that too and we don’t ever leave the campus area very much.
“But this trip took us so far out of the bubble. We were at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.”
Seeking out volunteerism
Bean said the opportunities are there at UD for those who seek them out:
“One of the staples of UD is community service. And I saw this trip as a chance to serve some people other than the immediate Dayton areas we’re used to.”
Before he had come to UD, Edwards had developed an interest in this kind of international volunteerism. He said his older sister, Taylor, had gone on a similar trip to El Salvador when she was an Ohio University medical student.
“She had a really great experience with that and I was always kind of jealous,” he said. “It inspired me and I wanted to do something like it. She had told me about the things they did to help people, but also about how there were times where they knew what was wrong with a person, but they didn’t have the resources to help them. That bothered me and made me want to go more.”
Byrne experienced something similar on this trip, she said:
“A lot of my most memorable experiences are bittersweet. For instance, we had this little kid who had a hole in his heart. When we shadowed (the doctor), you could actually hear it ‘whooosh’ in and out.
“From a learning standpoint it was cool to be able to experience that and hear it, but mostly it was sad because with the limited resources we bring down and have there, we weren’t really able to help him.
“And that really sticks in my head.”
Edwards agreed. He said while they do a lot of good for people down there, “no matter how much you do, it’s never enough. There is just so much need.”
He said whatever you do one day, you “try to do a little better” the next:
“You realize you just keep trying to do your part to help people the best way you can.”
He’s sounding like a doctor already.
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