The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Hope Gasvoda, daughter of Peter Gasvoda of Big Sandy, and Marla Olson of Havre, will be attending a Medicine and Health Care Summit at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD July 27-August 4. She was nominated by her shop teacher Brianna Bernhardt to attend the prestigious conference and was accepted.

Hope will get to experience a wide range of different medical and health experiences. Just staying at and receiving real-life experiences at a great medical school is impressive but she will also be able to work with experts in the field, look at career options and participate in debating medical ethics discussing including gene therapy and stem cell research. She'll be taking hands-on workshops, including suturing and put that skill into practice! Hope will be a part of workshops learning about reflexes, cranial nerves and blood pressure. Hope will have access to well-known medical professionals and listen to them as they lecture on why and how to choose a field as a medical professional. As a part of the conference she'll also have an opportunity to review global health organizations just in case she chooses to serve internationally. Hope will receive an introduction to intriguing patient case studies that she and her small group will solve and present to a medical panel during the Summit. She will visit the University of Maryland Medical School and state-of-the-art research facilities. Participate in a panel discussion with medical students and get a first-hand look at the medical research.

On top of all of that she will be visiting Washington DC and see the National Mall and all the memorials such as the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jefferson Memorials. She will be able to pay tribute to veterans at the National World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Hope will also go to National Museum of Health and Medicine, learn about the history and practice of American medicine.

While visiting with Hope you can see she has a passion. She is so excited to be going and will return to Big Sandy empowered by the motivational speakers she will be hearing from.

This is the first time any student from Big Sandy has ever participated in such an opportunity and we need to celebrate and support her. Hope has been doing fund raiser to pay for the trip including bake sales in Havre, but she also has raffle tickets on sale for a chance at half a pig or a vacation in Florida, you would need to pay for your own airplane ticket and the dates are limited. You can support Hope by buying a raffle or just supporting her at the Grocery Store or at the Mint.