Kelsy Concannon '08 in Tanzania as part of the Village Life Outreach Project.

Kelsy Concannon ‘08

On her third day in Tanzania, said Bethany senior Kelsy Concannon, “I woke up totally at peace with myself. Something had lit up in my world – I had found my true passion. I know I want to spend the next ten years of my life in the nitty gritty part of practicing medicine.”
 
Last summer, Kelsy spent 17 days in Tanzania on a medical mission trip with the Village Life Outreach Project, a non-profit organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She traveled with a group of doctors, medical students and volunteers to set up open field clinics, survey families about their medical needs, and teach skills in dental hygiene and water filtration.
 
“Every time I’d leave a home, I just wanted to turn around and go back in to help,” said Kelsy. She was particularly influenced by visits to HIV positive mothers to talk about the possibility of passing the virus on to their children.
 
Funded in part by a Bethany scholarship, and encouraged by her professors, Kelsy embarked on the trip looking for direction in post-graduate plans. She now plans to earn a master’s degree in nursing.
 
Joel Hake ’05 – currently a student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine – went on the team’s first trip to Tanzania in 2004. “At the end of the trip, the director of Village Life Outreach told me that the two Bethany students he’s known have had amazingly positive attitudes, and have been able to communicate with all types of people,” said Kelsy. “It made me so proud to be from Bethany.”