Global Health in Puerto Escondido, Mexico

CFHI is a great program to experience cultural immersion, clinical exposure, and language acquisition. It was a very well rounded experience with a lot of helpful support in place from the coordinators, my host family, and alumni advisor. We had enough structure in our schedule to reap benefits from the experience and enough free time to relax and enjoy the environment. I definitely would recommend it to other students! It was interesting to see some of the common chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia) because of diet and food access, also seeing unique tropical diseases like Dengue and Chagas, and seeing the younger age that women tend to have children as a result of social factors. My host mom was very kind and helpful and an amazing cook! She would always be interested to get a recap of our days so we could practice our Spanish. I really enjoyed my stay with her. Spanish classes were also super helpful and I learned a lot that helped me increase my fluency. My teacher, Rocio was extremely kind, patient, and supportive to help us make progress on a lot of grammatical and conversational skills. The many beautiful beaches and the overall environment in Puerto Escondido were very beautiful to enjoy. We even took a weekend trip to Oaxaca which was also a wonderful place to visit.

Prior to the program, I had never had the opportunity to travel alone and never really got to explore healthcare in other countries even though I always had interest in global/public health. Before CFHI, I didn’t know who to ask or where to go in order to find shadowing opportunities overseas that would allow me to learn about medicine and culture. I learned about CFHI at the UC Davis Pre-Health Conference during two lecture sessions about global health (one anecdotal and one from the program on ethics) and I knew immediately that this program was what I had been looking for. Dr. Jenny was even kind enough to exchange her contacts with me for a one on one zoom call where she talked to me and my friend for 2 hours about all our concerns post-COVID. The program even granted me the Community College Scholarship to help my family with the cost. I learned quickly the best way to reach the staff is by email pre-departure, though information on logistics could be more readily available, sooner released, or clearer. The application and training is very straightforward. The entire month in Puerto Escondido passed by too soon. I loved my clinic placements! The doctors, nurses, “chemicos,” and entomologist I met were all willing to teach and they are super sweet. I definitely find that you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone, ask questions, and come in with an open mind. Anything I asked was answered in detail. Clinics themselves had a limited scope of practice focused on prevention, metabolic disease, and there was a lot of visits on women’s health, mostly prenatal care and family planning. Between the clinics and Spanish class, I learned how Mexico organized their medical care in the public sector, public programs, culture, and from many conversations with medical professionals and my professor, what is working and what needs to be done. The medical staff, including Dra. Isabela the Medical Director, even helped me learn in depth about violence against women in Mexico (an issue I want to address in the future as a doctor). When when things were slow, the doctors would explain the procedures we had done and taught us to take blood pressure (of course only taking hers and a fellow CFHI student to practice). In terms of the homestay, I was blessed to be placed with a sweet older lady who cooked bomb foods, mixing it up with traditional stewed meats to steamed veggies and rice when my roommate had gotten sick. The host sister even invited us to her birthday, took me out my first few days, and everyone made sure we got our conversations in. This being said, the experience is what you make of it and what you put in, you get out. For me, it was everything I could ask for. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

This was an outstanding experience in community and tropical medicine! I was a global health major in undergrad but had still not explored global health abroad by the time I was a 4th year medical student. One reason for this was because I was hesitant about how ethical a lot of medically focused opportunities abroad were. CFHI was the perfect answer to my questions and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have learned global health first hand from the physicians and community health workers who lived and served in the area I studied. The clinical experiences were varied and informative and I really enjoyed the opportunity to practice the Spanish I was learning in my afternoon classes with the doctors and nurses I was working with as well as patients. One of my favorite clinical experiences was getting to take part in vector control with one of the community health workers who taught us as we went door to door interviewing and educating community members. Both teams in the US and in Mexico were super helpful and responsive with everything from the beginning to the end and the pre departure information and trainings prepared me well for the experience. I felt super safe while traveling alone as a woman in Puerto Escondido and thoroughly enjoyed leisure time on the gorgeous beaches, strolling the markets, and taking weekend trips to nearby cities. My experience in Puerto Escondido was overwhelmingly positive and will definitely influence the way I practice medicine as a physician. I am most grateful for the cultural insight I gained through this immersive experience and the huge improvement in my Spanish language skills, and I look forward to continuing my language study.