For Erin Newberry, a student registered nurse anesthetist (SRNA) at Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia, becoming a CRNA has always been about more than mastering a skill. This year, she took her work across borders, spending a week in Guatemala helping to provide care through Health Talents International, an experience she says shaped how she thinks about her future in the profession.
Erin’s path to this mission trip began with an invitation from her school’s president, who presented students with two partner organizations offering week-long medical mission trips to Guatemala. Students could sign up based on availability and would be assigned to a trip built around a specialty, like general surgery, dental care or gynecological procedures. Erin’s trip focused on dental and gynecological cases.
She soon was signed up to travel with Health Talents, an organization that runs a permanent clinic in Guatemala and coordinates approximately a dozen mission trips a year. The trips are staffed by volunteer surgeons, nurses and anesthesia providers from across the country. For Erin’s week, the team included two CRNAs, one anesthesiologist, and three students, including herself.
The trip wasn’t a required part of her clinical rotation, and the cases didn’t count toward her graduation requirements, but Erin and many of her classmates chose to travel anyway.
“It was a way to see how, even in another country, anesthesia is still practiced in very much the same way,” she said. “There might be a language barrier, but we’re still doing the same things and providing the same care.”
Erin expected to encounter outdated equipment and unfamiliar practices. Instead, she found a clinic running on donated, but current, medications and supplies that were largely provided by visiting teams over the years.
The real challenge was working with equipment donated from different sources that didn’t always match up, which is something the more experienced CRNAs on her team have already learned to navigate, but she was happy to learn. Adapting pediatric breathing circuits to work with adult equipment, for example, took some extra steps. But the care itself was not foreign to her training.
Of all the procedures Erin took part in that week, the case that stands out was a young boy with a cleft lip and palate.
“You could see on the mom’s face when she was able to see him after the procedure that she had such happiness and joy,” she said. “We got to change this little boy’s life. He doesn’t have any more problems eating.”
What struck Erin most about Health Talents International wasn’t just the care provided during the trip, but the organization’s long-term investment in the community it serves. The clinic sponsors local Guatemalans to attend school and return to work at the clinic as nurses, scrub techs and more, and it helps fund children’s education more broadly within the community.
“They’re giving back in more ways than one,” said Erin. “Instead of always relying on the Americans who come down, they’re working to make it a self-sustaining process. I think that’s a cause worth being part of.”
It’s one of the main reasons she plans to return to Guatemala once she’s a practicing CRNA.
Erin credits her older sister, a nurse who has completed medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Bulgaria, with first sparking her interest in this kind of work. Watching her sister’s experiences made Erin certain she wanted the same opportunity once she had the chance.
That same instinct to say yes to opportunity has shaped much of her time as a student. Through her involvement with TANA, Erin has attended Mid-Year Assembly and traveled to Washington D.C. with the association, building connections across Tennessee’s anesthesia community. The Guatemala trip connected her with providers from across the country who came together for that same week of service.
Erin’s message to classmates considering a similar path is simple: take the opportunity now.
“It’s not an experience that you’ll get here,” she said. “The work is hard, you’re busy as a student, but it’s so important to take time to make the unique connections you normally can’t make outside of school. It’s a worthwhile experience, and students should take advantage of it.”
