In late May 2018, Eastern students traveled to Ghana, West Africa with Lecturer Shelly Gimenez of the Department of Health Sciences.The group was hosted by the Rural Health Project Africa, an NGO involved with enhancing the health of rural Ghanaians through prevention and control education. The students who participated in Ghanaian culture in the town of Agona-Asamang in Ghana’s Ashanti region. 

To start their field experience, the Eastern students arrived in Ashanti, Ghana, where they visited shrines, clinics, hospitals, schools, an orphanage and a water treatment plant to learn firsthand about the nation’s health care and public health systems.

At Mampong Hospital in rural Agona, students participated in hospital rounds; observed in the operating theater; conducted well baby clinics; participated in the Maternal and Child Health Clinic; conducted patient intakes; and gained valuable experience in the Emergency Room. 

The students also visited disease control units and compared health care in Ghana with health systems in the United States. They interacted with students at the Withrow University College, a public health tertiary institution founded by Nsiah, who chairs Eastern’s Department of Health Sciences.

In addition to the students’ time with Ghana’s healthcare and public health systems, they experienced the Ashanti culture by living in the Rural Health Project facility in the rural African village of Assamang. Weekends were spent visiting historical sites, including the Mole National game reserve at Kintampo Falls, where they saw an elephant preserve and a monkey preserve. They also visited surrounding villages and markets, Kakum Rainforest, Cape Coast, the Elmina Slave Castle and a “prayer mountain,” a sacred place of worship in Ghana.