Skip to main content

Joy Wang

JoyNica2

Dental Brigades President 2014-2016

Hi! My name is Joy Wang. I am originally from Charleston, West Virginia and I am one of the co-founders of Global Medical Brigades.

My first trip with Brigades was to the Darien region of Panama near the Colombian border. Surrounded by dry forests yet humid heat, we worked in two communities across 7 days, providing free medical and dental care along with free medications to 521 patients. Tired but extremely grateful and humbled by the experience, we returned to WVU with the steadfast goal of improving and outdoing ourselves with our next Brigade trip to Nicaragua in 2015. Fortunately, we succeeded as we saw more than twice as many patients as our first Brigade and we added a Public Health Brigade component as well, serving three families by helping them build sanitary stations for their homes. Upon our return to WVU, we were recognized for our efforts as the Student Organization of the Year. After having completed my third and final trip with WVU Global Brigades, I can honestly say that these experiences have been the best and most influential of my life. They have shaped me as a leader and helped me realize my dream of becoming a physician to aid in domestic rural and global medicine in under-resourced regions. As a current graduate student studying physiology, I have decided to change my plans from academia to medicine and have been granted a seat at VCOM on Virginia Tech’s Campus. ere.