"It has been a great experience for us all. Seeing and treating many different ailments, truly working together as an interdisciplinary team, and growing to understand the culture of the community," said Duke student Stephanie Whitlark.

As Clements wrote at the start of the trip: "I am fortunate to travel with all these young, energetic and idealistic students and to stay with the wonderful people who live in the mountains of Honduras who are poor in material wealth, but rich in personal and community wealth. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able for both groups (the students and the locals) to share what is important to themselves and help each other understand what in life is important... Except for money and the opportunity for education, the people in the mountains are just like us."

Students from Duke, NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University and Meredith College came together in the first-ever North Carolina Global Health Case Competition to develop innovative solutions that address children's health in Afghanistan, which has one of the highest mortality rates in the world of children under the age of five.

The case competition kicked off Tuesday night with DGHI faculty member Anthony So, who discussed the complexity of enacting a global health program and offered advice on the importance of understanding the context and framework of program design. The case was revealed to students at that time, and they had four days to brainstorm ideas, meet with faculty mentors, propose their recommendations and develop a compelling presentation. Students worked in multidisciplinary teams to develop their final recommendations with many areas of study represented, including global health, public health, biomedical engineering, public policy, chemistry, computer science, medicine, sociology, psychology and neuroscience.