Spring Break: Travel & Gain Clinical Hours

Be productive

If the thought of having a fun, enjoyable, but also rewarding and productive spring break experience is something that interests you, then here is what you need to know. There are many ways to participate in medical missions and take part of a meaningful medical experience that will change your view of the world, health care, and how you practice medicine in the future. I encourage you to be productive and if you are a pre PA student looking for an opportunity to gain clinical hours, doing a medical mission is a perfect way to gain a unique experience. This is something you can talk about in your interview, gather up patient stories, and practice patient care, but more than that, learn to live and view another culture and travel to a different place you are not even aware of.

Find organizations

There are many nonprofit organizations out there that conduct medical missions with undergraduate students in many of your universities. Many of them require applications and lengthy processes, however, one organization I traveled with at FSU was MEDLIFE. This was the easiest way to participate in a medical mission. No application was required, anybody could attend, you don’t even have to be tied to a university, you can simply go on their website and pay to participate and go. They offer many experiences including, Peru, Ecuador, and even Africa now. Do your research and I guarantee you can find an organization to participate in a medical mission.

Plan ahead

It’s important to plan ahead, I know spring break is around the corner, so maybe you can consider this idea for next year, or NOT. To be honest I planned my medical mission just 1 month before, so it is never too late, nothing is impossible, so if you are serious about this, I suggest you get going and start finding information about it. If you decide to do it next year, I suggest you estimate the cost ahead of time, maybe try doing a go fund me page to gather donations from your family and friends, and buy your flights early to get them cheap.

My experience

During my freshman year at Florida State University, I traveled to Lima, Peru during my spring break with MEDLIFE. I went with another 50 FSU students and about 5 other UM students in the same medical mission. We visited the mountains outside of Lima, called Pamplona where people don’t even have access to healthcare. We saw about 1,500 patients the entire week and had the opportunity to rotate from various stations that included triage, pharmacy, dental, community learning, and others. We did not only had the opportunity to work with local physicians while they diagnosed, administered medication, and cared for patients, but we also assisted the local community in the village by building sets of stairs for them to have access to their homes rather than walking on dirt. It was heart breaking seeing these locals who had never visited a physician before and did not know how to properly brush their teeth or what contraceptives were. Sometimes we take things for granted in America and we have no idea what other people in the world are facing. It was rewarding being able to speak in Spanish to the locals and hear them tell me how thankful and appreciative they were of us taking the time to be there. After our week there in the village, the locals made a celebration for us, it was like tradition, and we ran around with ax trying to break a tree that had treats in it. We each took turns and try to hit the tree as hard as we could, this was helerious but it was so much fun.

Exploring

Because it was my spring break, I also wanted to make sure I enjoyed and rewarded myself a bit from school and medicine. After our long ours in Pamplona caring for patients and later discussing community problems with our group, we would enjoy our nights out in Lima. The weekend after we finished the medical mission, many of the students planned excursions. We visited the beach and went surfing for the first time, many of the students went sand boarding. I was not able to do this because my flight left that day. We also went to local parks and malls, and enjoyed the most delicious Peruvian food in the world. We ate ceviche, papas a la Guacaina, and we ate churros day and night because they were the most amazing thing ever. I remember a night we went to a street full of night clubs and every club will pull us in there, give us free shots, and offer us to stay just because we were a big group of “Americans”

friendships

It’s crazy how close you get to the people you travel with. For that one week, we ate together, showered together, slept together and even had diarrhea together lol (because we all got sick due to the water or eating random stuff in the street). It is a unique experience and you will forever share these memories with this group of individuals. More than that, they have the same aspirations as you, they are all passionate about medicine as much as you are. I made lifelong friendships and till this day I have all of them in Facebook and social media and seeing how everybody has achieved their dreams in their unique ways still astonishes me every day. It is fulfilling to go back and speak to these friends and ask them for advice, questions about their journey in medicine, and other experiences they have done. I met one of my bests friends from college while traveling in Peru, after that we both experienced the same pre pa struggles, taking the GRE, applying to PA school, and we always talked about that one day when we would be in PA school and finally we both had the opportunity to celebrate our admission into PA school. We both look back and realize it all started in this trip when we got so passionate about providing care to those less fortunate. It’s these little experiences that shape the direction you take with your career so I encourage you all to take advantage of what is out there, but most importantly look for it, it will not come to you, you must put the time and effort into doing experiences that will change you.

Total Clinical Hours I gained from this was : 100

MEDLIFE LINK BELOW, this is a list of all the medical mission trips where you can just register =)

https://www.medlifemovement.org/upcoming-volunteer-trips/all-mobile-clinics/table.html