At the end of each spring semester, Wabash students pack up their belongings and leave campus for summer. For students in the GHI (Global Health Immersion) program, summer internships bring class material closer to home.
Dalton Kuhn ’26, a biology major double minoring in chemistry and Spanish, worked at the Posey County Health Department for the second consecutive summer.
“This year, I’m working on increasing the amount of testing for sexually transmitted diseases in the county. Previously we didn’t have the equipment or technology to test for blood-based infections,” Kuhn said. “My day-to-day work involves helping set up the lab and implementing procedures. I also document infectious diseases, animal bite reports, and lead and assist the case manager and the public health nurses for those areas.”
Last summer, Kuhn’s internship at the health department focused on the opioid crisis and overdose prevention. His work included writing a grant for Narcan, the life-saving medication that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. 
The following semester, Kuhn received a call informing him that very Narcan he helped obtain had saved a life.
“My family actually knew the person who received the Narcan, so that hit really close to home,” said Kuhn. “Sometimes it can feel like you do tons of work, but it takes a while to see it make a difference. Seeing that our work helped save a life really stuck with me.”
Similar efforts to curb the opioid crisis are underway at Allen County Health Department, where James Rusher ’27 conducted research this summer to track opioid overdoses and identify how various factors like changes in policy affect those rates.
“168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 have a monthly meeting where we go through overdose cases. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 talk through what went wrong and where the system failed them,” said Rusher. “You see firsthand that all walks of life struggle with this, but you also quickly see which groups aren’t getting the same care as others and how that translates to higher fatality rates.”
John Huisden ’28 spent his summer at Gennesaret Free Clinic in Indianapolis, a clinic that provides no-cost medical and dental care. He worked on a project to digitally process the clinic’s backlog of paperwork and assisted patients with paperwork and pre-appointment screening.
“It’s personally impactful to be out in the community and talking with our patients,” Huisden said. “People come in and need someone to listen. Some give us their whole life story. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 really get to know them while they’re here.”
Huisden said the clinic’s nonprofit approach to healthcare will stick with him.
“Last week, a man came to the mobile clinic with an injured foot,” he said. “Life was really coming at him, and he was in a tough situation without a home or job. While living on the street, he was beat up and robbed of most of his belongings – the cause of his injured foot. While the clinic physician examined his injury, someone gave him a replacement phone charger and ordered him a pizza.”
Professor of Biology and Director of Wabash Global Health Initiative Eric 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网tzel sees the impact these experiences have in the classroom—both on students who interned and their classmates who get to hear and share their stories.
“Years ago, a GHI intern with the Montgomery County Health Department had worked on a project having to do with substance use in the area. It’s one thing for me to talk to students about challenges of substance use disorder or to discuss the social determinants of health associated with this, but it’s a whole other thing for that intern to then say, ‘You need to understand that there is an active meth house only 200 meters from where we’re sitting,’” said 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网tzel. “That made the public health issue real, and close.”
“Proximity influences perspective — on living humanely and acting responsibly in particular — and is one of the key realities about which we can educate our students,” he continued. “Proximity brings them closer to the reality of people.”
“Every day, I meet people who face the same barriers to care that we discuss in global health class,” said Huisden. “These gaps in the healthcare system affect real people with real experiences.”