Tennessee Tech nursing students deliver hands-on care during study abroad trip to Belize
For nine students in Tennessee Tech University’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing, a recent study abroad trip to Belize meant far more than sightseeing.
Instead, the students spent their days conducting home health visits in remote villages, assisting with wound care and starting IVs in understaffed clinics, educating patients, supporting prenatal care and even accompanying emergency responders on ambulance calls.
The trip, led by professors Melissa Geist and Jennifer Mabry along with lecturer Cary Cass, offered students the opportunity to deliver real patient care under faculty supervision while gaining firsthand experience in a resource-limited health care environment.
“When people hear you’re going to Belize, they assume you’re going to the northern part, which is very developed,” explained Geist, who has led nursing students on annual trips to Belize for more than a decade. “But we work in the Toledo District in the southern part of the country, which is a marginalized, resource-limited area. This is truly a working trip.”
Rising senior Kate Laffoon of Oak Ridge spent part of the week making home visits in a Mayan village alongside a community health worker.
“We would visit people and talk about their medications, what they were taking them for and make sure they understood their treatment,” said Laffoon, who hopes to work in emergency or critical care nursing. “We also got to connect with the children and experience their culture. It really opened our eyes to how different health care can look.”
Students also helped develop an exercise program for women in the village aimed at addressing rising rates of diabetes and hypertension.
At a local polyclinic — similar to an urgent care center in the U.S. — rising senior Montana Merrett of Winchester rotated through prenatal and women’s health services.
“Many of the mothers lived in remote villages, so there was a lot of education about preparing for delivery and making sure they could access care,” said Merrett, who hopes to pursue a career in labor and delivery nursing. “It was amazing to see how much they do with limited resources.”
Abby Webb, a senior from Athens who plans to become an emergency room nurse, accompanied a nurse and ambulance driver to assist an injured man who required emergency care.
“The patients we saw were true emergencies,” Webb said. “There weren’t a lot of resources or extra personnel, so everybody relied heavily on their knowledge and worked together. I was really impressed by how efficiently they cared for people.”
Geist said the students put their skills to work right away, helping fill gaps alongside Belizean health care workers.
“The first day we arrived, the clinic had a nursing staff shortage,” she said. “Our students jumped right in. They weren’t standing around waiting to be told what to do. The nurses there were so relieved to see our students.”
Mabry said experiences like the Belize trip help students develop the sense of service that she believes should define the nursing profession.
“It’s important for students to understand that nursing isn’t just clocking in and clocking out,” Mabry explained. “Service and giving back should be part of your profession. The people there welcomed us and taught our students, and our students discovered they already had knowledge they could use to educate and help others.”
Although the days were packed with work, students also enjoyed cultural experiences, including Belizean cuisine, a local soccer match and a snorkeling excursion on a private island.
Just as valuable, participants said, were the relationships formed among the students and faculty.
“A core principle of nursing is teamwork,” Mabry added. “The students learned to rely on one another, and those bonds formed quickly.”
For Laffoon, the experience has continued to shape her perspective long after returning home.
“Every shift I’ve worked since coming back, I’ve thought about Belize,” she said. “It gave me so much gratitude and reminded me why I wanted to become a nurse in the first place.”
The Whitson-Hester School of Nursing enrolled 884 students last fall, its highest enrollment in more than a decade. In 2025, Tech graduates earned a 95% first-time pass rate on the National Council Licensure Examination, tying Vanderbilt University and exceeding state and national averages.
Beginning this fall, the WHSON has added a direct admission pathway — allowing eligible students to be directly enrolled in the nursing major right out of high school, rather than applying to the program after completing freshman and sophomore prerequisite courses.
Students applying to Tech with a GPA of 3.4 or higher and an ACT score of at least 23 are eligible for direct admission to the School of Nursing and guaranteed scholarships through Tech’s Presidential Scholars program.
Learn more about Tennessee Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing at www.tntech.edu/nursing.