It’s with bright eyes and a wide smile that Dr. Vanda Corbett speaks of her upcoming trip to India.

The High River chiropractor has done her fair share of travelling over the years, but not always to sun-soaked islands and tourism hotspots that most people dream of. Next week, Corbett leaves for Hyderabad, a city of four million people in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

There in a city were one-third of the population lives in the slums, Corbett and a team of 50 chiropractic students will host free clinics for an expected 15,000 people, most of whom do not otherwise have access to medical professionals.

“Sometimes we are the only doctors they’ve ever seen, period,” Corbett said. “Of course we get the normal neck and back pain, but we see everything — asthma, ear infections and other visceral conditions.

“I wasn’t there, but last year a guy came in with elephantitis.”

Corbett is going to India as part of an outreach trip organized by her alma mater, Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, which organizes a couple international humanitarian trips each year for students who are three to six months away from graduation. In an effort to establish some semblance of continuous care, the school runs trips to the same communities in 11 countries. So far, Corbett has seen four of them.

As a student, Corbett travelled to Fiji and Nicaragua. This will be her second trip as a supervisor faculty member. Her first was to Brazil.

“Every time I go on these trips, it helps me to be a global citizen,” she explained. “It’s an eye-opening experience…I personally get so much from it.”

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