SRU students earn credits, provide care in Vietnam
SLIPPERY ROCK — Four Slippery Rock students spent two weeks in Vietnam earlier this year where they aided rehabbing patients while amassing field work credits.
The students: Evan Andreyo of Butler, Aubrie Luckenbaugh of York, Jamie Fiorina of Cranberry Township and Lewis Tyler Savisky of Oakdale, left Jan. 12 and returned Jan. 31.
The students and Barbara Billek-Sawhney, SRU professor in the School of Physical Therapy, provided physical therapy for 10 days at the Da Nang Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital and one day at the Da Nang Center for Agent Orange Victims and Unfortunate Children, which treats children with Agent Orange-related maladies in central Vietnam.
Each of the students is a third-year graduate student in the doctor of physical therapy program.
“Our professor went through a selection process,” said Andreyo, the son of Bernard and Shelly Andreyo. “She has been overseas before and wanted to bring students with her. We were selected on the basis of accomplishment, interest, openness to new experiences and recommendations from other faculty.”
“We worked a lot with patients at the hospital,” Andreyo said, “but we spent one day treating children with the effects of Agent Orange.”
While the children themselves had not been exposed to the defoliant used during the Vietnam War, the previous generation had been.
The children exhibited symptoms of Down syndrome and cerebral palsy, he said.
At the hospital, Andreyo said, “We were working side by side with the staff in the trenches. The language barrier made it very difficult.”
Andreyo said despite the history between the United States and Vietnam, “The people were really nice, they were happy to have us. I had been expecting some resentment.”
The weather also proved welcoming, he said.
“It was the colder season for them, 70 degrees. They were walking around in winter jackets and we were in shorts,” he said.
“Vietnam is beautiful. The cities are kind of dirty, but once you get out in the countryside, it’s a tropical climate, he added.
Billek-Sawhney delivered lectures to physical therapists at Da Nang Hospital.
The students participated in teaching moments. The education and treatment was designed to raise the level of physical therapy in Vietnam and support the mission of the coordinating agency, “Health Volunteers Overseas Transforming Lives Through Education.”
“As a group, we were able to effectively work at the hospital with therapists, students, patients and family members despite language barriers and very few people speaking English and our inability to speak Vietnamese,” Billek-Sawhney said in a university news release upon her return. “Our eyes were open to their beautiful culture and country.”
The trip was funded by International Studies, Graduate Studies, the President’s Commission on Race Ethnicity, and Diversity, plus the Faculty Professional Development Grant program.
