Nancy Palmer, associate professor of nursing, went through a life changing experience when she spent the summer of 2005 in Peru holding free medical clinics for the poor. That first summer Palmer and her husband, Tom, a physician, treated about 800 people and learned the real meaning of poverty. They worked in Trujillo, a city north of Lima on the Pacific Ocean for an organization called Bruce Peru, which is dedicated to helping Latin American street children.

In the summer of 2006, Palmer and her husband returned to Trujillo and then traveled to Cusco in the high Andes where they worked with Quechua people, again holding free clinics with the help of first-year medical students from Leeds University in England.

Even with the potential of very serious problems with customs (the Palmers carry their drugs into the country in their suitcases) and horrible conditions of poverty, Prof. Palmer said she has found her heart there, working with the poor. The threat of violence from the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla organization, may prevent the Palmers from returning to Peru next summer, so they are thinking of Ecuador of Panama.

“I’m sure we will go somewhere,” Palmer said. “I am learning so much and I really love those people so much.”