For the second year, third-year students and faculty from the Salus Osborne College of Audiology traveled to Appalachia to hold a hearing clinic at Redbird Mission in Beverly, Kentucky, where they saw almost 200 patients in two days.
Led by assistant professor, Dr. Jonette Owen, the Class of 2016 student volunteers were Alyssa Acquavita; Stephanie Borja; Nina Buckley-Ess; Stephanie Fischer; Mary Ann Murphy; Jason Rickman; Alyssa Rohrbach; Ashley Romano; Natalie Rupert, Rachel Timmons and Katherine Tribulski.
Ms. Tribulski kept a short blog of the group’s trip, admitting that she and her fellow students were so busy during the day and so tired at night, she had no chance to write more than a few lines for each day.
The poverty level in Appalachia is high – on average, about 17% of Kentucky’s citizens live below the federal poverty level. The county served by Red Bird Mission ranks in the top 20 poorest counties in America, with the percentage of people living below the poverty level at about 37%. Humanitarian medical trips are a necessity for most citizens living in these areas.
