Community Health Experience for Pre-Health Students
Community health education and medical Spanish in Costa Rica and Ecuador, built for pre-health students. February and July every year.
Most international programs sold to pre-med students are built around access they should not have. A student two years from applying to medical school is not qualified to be in a care setting, and programs that put them there are selling something that will not hold up under questioning.
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.
That is work you are genuinely qualified to do, and it is the reason this program is worth your time.
Who This Is For
Undergraduate pre-med and pre-health students, post-baccalaureate students, gap-year students preparing applications, and anyone deciding whether health care is the right path.
There is no Spanish minimum. Instruction is set to your level.
Your cohort is interprofessional and includes students already in medical, nursing, PA and pharmacy programs. For someone still deciding, that access to people a few years ahead is worth a great deal.
Timing and Length
When
Twice a year, February and July.
Length
Three and four week programs within a four-week block.
What the Program Includes
Documentation
Documentation of hours and activities.
Community health education
This is the core of it. You work with the team delivering health education in underserved communities, on topics those communities requested. You prepare the material in Spanish before departure and deliver it directly to community members. It is real work, appropriate to your training, and it is the part most students find changes their thinking.
Medical Spanish instruction
Roughly 20 hours a week at our partner language school, set to your level.
Host family lodging
One student per household.
What This Does for an Application, Honestly
Admissions committees see a great many international experiences, and they have become good at spotting the ones purchased rather than earned. The ones that raise questions are the ones where an undergraduate describes being in an operating room.
What holds up in an interview is specificity. What you prepared, who you delivered it to, what you learned about why those health problems persist in that community, and what you can say in Spanish.
This program gives you those things. It will not give you a story about clinical access, and a story about clinical access would work against you with anyone paying attention.
What you learn about the path itself
A lot of people decide on medicine without having spent much time around the health problems most patients actually have. Working in a community on blood pressure, blood sugar, and nutrition, in a language you are still learning, is a fairly direct look at what a career in health care involves.
Some students finish more certain. A few finish knowing it is not for them, which is a better outcome at twenty than at twenty-eight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Reserve Your Spot
Reserve your spot, or call (888) 879-2575. Related programs: Spanish study abroad programs, medical electives in Costa Rica and Ecuador, and all international rotations.
