Global Health Programs for Medical Students
A global health program built around Spanish, community partnership, and population health in Costa Rica and Ecuador. February and July every year.
Global health as a field has spent the last decade reckoning with how it was practiced. This program is designed around what that reckoning concluded: work the community asked for, delivered by people who will still be there next year, with students contributing rather than performing.
This is not a clinical program. You are not placed in a hospital or clinic, and you do not observe or assist in patient care. The patient-facing work here is community health education. You work directly with community members, in Spanish, on health topics those communities identified.
Who This Is For
Medical students pursuing a global health track or concentration, and students who want the experience without a formal track.
There is no Spanish minimum. Instruction is set to your level.
Your cohort is interprofessional. You work alongside nursing, PA, pharmacy and public health students, which is how global health is actually delivered.
Timing and Length
When
Twice a year, February and July.
Length
Three and four week programs within a four-week block.
What the Program Covers
Documentation
Documentation of hours and activities for your school’s records.
Community health education
Community health education in underserved communities, on topics those communities identified, prepared extensively in Spanish before departure and delivered alongside local partner organizations.
Medical Spanish instruction
Roughly 20 hours a week, oriented toward health education and patient communication.
Host family lodging
One student per household.
What a Global Health Program Should Teach You
Most of what makes global health difficult is not clinical. It is understanding why a health system produces the outcomes it does, why an intervention that worked elsewhere fails here, and why the community’s priorities are not the ones you would have chosen.
That is what this program is built to show you. You see how a country organizes health for its population. You work on the health problems the community named. And you do it in the language, which changes what you are able to learn from the people around you.
On the ethics of short-term global health work. The literature on this is not flattering, and it should not be. Programs that fly students in to perform procedures beyond their training, or to run interventions timed to an academic calendar, have caused genuine harm. The clearest way to avoid that is not to put students in care settings at all, which is the position we have taken. You support continuing work, on projects local organizations own.
Accreditation and Documentation
We are an accredited provider of continuing education, and we provide documentation of hours and activities for your school’s records.
For Medical Schools and Global Health Programs
We build custom programs, faculty-led cohorts, and group enrollment. See our programs for institutions or request a proposal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Reserve Your Spot
Reserve your spot, or call (888) 879-2575. Related programs: medical electives in Costa Rica and Ecuador, resource-limited setting rotations, and all international rotations.
