Finding the Right Fit Far From Home

Honors College junior Matt Carmody has always been interested in the medical field, but it was not until a recent trip to the Republic of Nicaragua to help the poor did he know what he wanted to pursue as a career.

Shoes and medical care

Carmody fitting a little Nicaraguan girl with new shoes.

Carmody, his parents, and younger sister spent part of their summer in the lush green mountains of San Ramon in northern Nicaragua.  On a team of 35 Americans sponsored by the nonprofit Corner of Love organization, Carmody and his family delivered medical and dental supplies and distributed shoes to more than 200 children.  Roughly 3,000 people were helped and benefited from the team’s efforts.

Shoes are required to be worn to classes.  Carmody recalls a 12-year-old boy that had used the same pair for four years.  “His feet were so cramped that he had broken one of his big toes,” he says, “but he had to continue wearing those shoes if he wanted to go to school.”

In Nicaragua, Carmody also helped set up and operate a mobile pharmacy, discussed patients’ illnesses and treatment plans with doctors, and, when needed, provided basic medical care such as putting antibiotics and bandages on open wounds.

“In America, I could never have helped out like that without the fear of possibly being sued,” he says.

Impactful experiences

Carmody was perhaps given considerable responsibility in Nicaragua thanks to experience gained on a personally financed previous medical mission to Dar es Salaam in spring 2008.  He helped at a medical clinic in a ghetto on the outskirts of Tanzania’s largest city on the coast of the Indian Ocean.  He spent more than two months there assisting doctors with public healthcare.

“I was one of the first people to use technology and map the area. We started testing the community for HIV and I participated in both the drawing of blood and the testing process of it.  Then, after we tested people, we would place a marker on the map along with the number of people tested and the percent positive rate,” says Carmody.  The average rate of the community was between 11 and 12 percent positive.

“I wanted to do this, to go and experience the world and help people while doing it,” he says.  He thought of becoming a physician.   “This is also the reason I went to Nicaragua.”

After his trip to Central America, he changed his mind.  “I decided to major in pre-dentistry and minor in Spanish.  I was helping doctors and handing shoes out to children there but I was also able to assist dentists, and that experience made me realize that dentistry was for me.

Serving others

“It was life-changing for everyone in my family to experience a different culture while helping people in a Third World country.”

Returning home to Issaquah, Wash., Carmody was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Service Award Gold Level for performing more than 250 hours of community service.  He also makes a difference for the WSU campus community; he is currently the director of recruitment for the Interfraternity Council and a member of Phi Kappa Theta fraternity.

The benefits of Honors

Carmody is as passionate about getting the best possible education as he is about helping people in need.   He chose WSU after touring the campus and after visiting the Honors College.

“I wanted to be somewhere that had great academics and smaller class sizes…which is exactly what the WSU Honors College was offering,” says Carmody.   His choice is paying off, he says.  He enjoys the Honors learning environment and has developed skills at organizing his busy schedule of classes and extracurricular activities.

Matt Carmody checking the blood pressure of a Nicaraguan woman.