CHM Summer Peru Service Learning Program

Up to 7 CHM students will accompany a team of Peruvian medical professionals to a province outside of Lima, Peru where the surgical team will provide cleft lip and cleft palate surgery for poor children.  The volunteer surgical team is led by head and neck surgeon, Dr. Margarita Marchino of the non-profit Associacion Medica Quisiera Ser Como Tu.  The students will spend a week in the province.

In Lima, the students will spend a week shadowing physicians, and visiting hospitals and clinics.  They will learn about health care in Peru, and about major health care issues.  They will examine the social, economic, and political context of health care in an urban and a rural area.  

Students will provide health and preventive education.  They may have opportunities to provide service to other nongovernmental organizations and their constituents. 

Students can elect to study Spanish before the service learning program begins in Lima.  It is recommended that students have a basic command of Spanish at the minimum.

A visit to Macchu Picchu is included in the two week summer program.

Tanya Pulver, co-president of the medical student organization International Health Projects, organized and led the first trip in the summer of  2004.  Students pay for airfare, meals, lodging, any Spanish immersion program, and for in-country travel.  Students enroll for credit for this experience.