Submitted Photo Members of the Fredonia Honduras contingent include (front row, from left): Yazmin Ortiz, Hailey Gould, Kailynn Janaski, Caitlyn Roe, Emma Lilly, Alexis Rodriguez and Lauren Helf; (back row): Alison Prendergast, Haleigh Moreno, Chelsea O’Dea, the four doctors in the program, Sierra Delcamp, Lauren Cullinan and Brad Brown.

The unique experience of serving on medical brigades in Honduras during the J-Term will be shared by State University of New York at Fredonia students in an informal presentation they’ll give on Friday, Feb. 21, at 3 p.m., in the Science Center’s Kelly Family Auditorium (Room 105).

Thirteen students majoring in Biology or Chemistry gained insight into how primary health care is delivered in rural areas in an impoverished country in the western hemisphere. They conducted four brigades in four villages, serving at individual stations – each with a specific function, such as taking vitals – that prepared patients to see a physician. Coyolito, one of these villages, hadn’t been visited by a medical brigade in five years.

This was the second consecutive year that Fredonia sent a contingent to Honduras to serve on medical brigades. Four students from the inaugural mission were also a part of this year’s group.

“It was a terrific week. The students were great, worked really well together,” said Department of Biology Professor Ted Lee, who led the Fredonia group.

Students served on brigades that saw as many as 200 people.

Also part of the Fredonia contingent were Sociology Professor Emeritus Joy Bilharz; Dr. Nichol Eaton-Wolkiewicz, a certified school psychologist from Orchard Park; and Emily Herfel, D.O., who is completing her residency at Doctors Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Cory Jackson, a 2014 graduate of Fredonia with a B.S. in Biology and 2018 a graduate of the University of Florida College of Medicine, donated stethoscopes used in the brigades.

Fredonia has already been invited back to Honduras in 2021, Lee noted, and has been asked to serve on five brigades.

The Honduras presentation is free and open to the public.