Hi, my name is Karen Smith and I am the Director of the Office of Faith and Service. And as you know, Baptist University is a faith-based institution. So what does that mean to us? And what will that mean to you? Well, we really feel that you as students coming to the Baptist University are set apart by God. Set apart to become healthcare providers. I know that I could never be a nurse. I can never be a respiratory therapist. I can never be a radiation therapist. I can never be a doctor. So I have so much appreciation for your calling. Your calling from God.
And you will come here to the university and you'll have a wonderful experience. You'll get a wonderful education. But more than your education, you'll also get the availability, the events to help you to develop your spiritual life. Here at the university, as you can tell by the picture behind us hands are very important. Because if you look at the first four gospels, out the New Testament, you can see where Jesus spent a lot of his time in healing people.
In many times, Jesus used his hands to touch people and make them whole. So as you go into your clinical rotations, as you go into your internships, one of the things that we do here at the university, is we do a blessing of your hands. Where I will anoint your hands as the symbolism of your hands being hands of healing. I will anoint them with oil. And oil has always been a healing balm. So what we say is we want your hands to be the hands of Christ as you go when you heal people and care for people in touch people.
Service is very important here at the university. We do things locally, and we do things internationally. One of the most life-changing experiences is the international medical mission trip that we do each year. Where we go to places where healthcare is not available. And people are suffering both physically and mentally and spiritually. And we set up clinics and it might be in a banana plantation. It might be under stilts on a house above the ocean. It might be in a school but we've set up these clinics wherever the local doctors want us to go and we do a clinic.
We have stations where they come and we check them in-- the patients are checked in. We do triage-- We take them to the doctor-- the doctor stations and they go to a pharmacy-- we take pharmaceuticals. They can even have scans done through the DMS student, our ultrasound students. It's a wonderful way that the whole college comes together and works together to do a clinic. The whole university comes together. So here at Baptist University, we really do feel like you're here because of a calling from God. And we're here to support you in any way we can. We're just so thankful that you come to our school.