I plan to travel to Lima, Peru, in August 2023 to do a clinical rotation at a local hospital and clinic, providing care in Dermatology and Internal Medicine. This clinic serves a large population of underserved people in the greater Lima area and represents one of the few places where subspecialty care is offered. I will be doing hands-on clinical work to help care for patients and engaging with local providers on their knowledge and skills, both as a learner and as one sharing my experiences in the United States. During my time, I will be attending clinics and seeing patients in the hospital to learn from and help diagnose and manage patients with colleagues from Peru. Because these are diverse populations with unique needs in a low-resource setting, there is a high need for diagnosing and treating many tropical infections and diseases that are often neglected in these locations. I hope to make a difference by learning from these patients and their experiences to become a better doctor for them and for the thousands of immigrants and patients of color I look forward to taking care of, after this experience, in the United States. Furthermore, I hope to build a strong relationship with the university to help create shared knowledge and resources to aid in their continued treatment of patients in my absence. This could manifest as continued educational platforms between us or other clinical tools, like teledermatology. Because many of these patients face socioeconomic barriers to care, I hope to understand how to help navigate these issues to provide cost-conscious care both domestically and abroad.
I am originally from Southern California and have worked in federally-qualified health centers for many years prior to going into my medical training, where we cared for the most vulnerable patients in our society, many of whom only spoke Spanish. During this time, I recognized the great need for specialty and primary care physicians who speak Spanish and are cognizant of both the cultural and socioeconomic concerns of patients who present with minimal resources and limited English proficiency. By training in Lima, Peru, I hope that I will be able to make a difference in the lives of the patients by providing specialty knowledge and helping care for a large group, but I also hope that I will be able to translate this experience to my work caring for immigrants and homeless people in urban areas. Many of these patients have undiagnosed skin conditions that require advanced training to diagnose, and I hope to help ease that burden slightly with my presence. My parents are immigrants and faced significant health challenges for which care was hard since my parents had limited English proficiency. I hope to understand better, because of my fluency in Spanish, how to provide advanced specialty care so that no immigrant patient has to feel excluded by our healthcare system, especially by specialty services, which are often difficult to receive. In the future, I hope to translate this experience to my work in urban county hospitals and clinics to care for underserved immigrants.
First, I hope there will be a direct impact on the patients of Peru. These individuals are gracious to welcome me into their clinic spaces to help care for the local population. I humbly approach learning from them how to care better for patients of color and understand how socioeconomic barriers may be navigated to promote a healthier lifestyle through creative means. Beyond this direct impact, I aspire to translate this experience into my own work caring for immigrants. I believe we can make a tremendous impact on the thousands of limited English proficient patients who lack access to care in the United States and worldwide. We can create bridges by partnering with international communities to expand our knowledge so that we can continue to provide exemplary care for all populations. Furthermore, one of my major interests in dermatology and medicine apart from patients of color, immigrants, and the social determinants of health is education; I believe that building this relationship in Peru will help foster a new era of education for our own trainees and trainees in Peru so that we can share knowledge and experiences and build a better healthcare system for our global community. I thank you for considering me for this opportunity, which will significantly reduce a financial burden in caring for this population.
There was a tremendous impact on patients, physicians, and my own education from this trip. First, many patients were able to benefit from an additional physician able to aid in providing efficient, effective care. Physicians there were impacted because of our ability to exchange ideas and build shared skills. I was impacted because of new learning I received, which will pay dividends upon my return to care for patients in the United States.
