Guatemala Service Learning is a two-week experience that is offered bi-annually through the University of Wisconsin. It comprises of physicians, advanced practice providers, pharmacists as well as medical, pharmacist, and physical therapy students with the primary aim to provide patient care to the communities around San Lucas Toliman, near Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. As a Family Medicine physician working within academic and residency settings, my intention is to help serve this community, in hopes to create a partnership with community organizations, including Mission of San Lucas Toliman, to create a pathway for family medicine residents to participate in an immersive global health experience. The goal with our participation will be to continue to support the community.
The primary beneficiaries of this project will be the community of San Lucas Toliman, including its surrounding communities. The population of San Lucas is predominately Maya Kaqchikel, of which have long inhabited the shores of Lake Atitlan dating back thousands of years. Unfortunately, the Maya have been victims to many social injustices, including adverse possession of their lands. Through these actions, great inequality exists, with poverty and its immediate effects affecting the Mayan people in the 1960s. With the help of the Mission of San Lucas Toliman as well as Friends of San Lucas, many resources have been given to correct these injustices and provide back a means of survival to the Mayans, including basic access to healthcare.
By collaborating with the University of Wisconsin as well as the Mission of San Lucas Toliman, the goal will be to improve health outcomes within the local communities through consistent medical care, education in disease prevention, and with a long-term goal of creating a sustainable, community driven health education and care model. In turn, we hope that these trips will enrich our understanding of global health challenges, and their solutions. We hope that by being allowed to provide care to the people of San Lucas Toliman, it will help enhance our clinical skills, and most importantly, our cultural competence and ability to provide compassionate care. We hope that through these experiences, we can bring it back home, and continue to enrich our patient centered care practices.
Partnering with the University of Wisconsin and Friends of San Lucas, we had the privilege of serving the people in and around San Lucas Tolimán by providing medical care at five different clinic sites. Averaging over 50 patients a day, our team worked closely with the San Lucas Mission and its network of local health promoters to ensure that the care we provided was not only compassionate, but also sustainable and tailored to the specific needs of each community.
The people we served welcomed us with trust and generosity, sharing their stories, their challenges, and their resilience. Guided by the Mission’s model of pay-what-you-can healthcare—which reaches over 20,000 individuals annually—we joined a long-standing effort to provide dignified, accessible care. Each day, students organized supplies, traveled to rural clinic sites, and worked in teams to conduct patient histories and physical exams before presenting to local and UW providers. In the evenings, faculty-led sessions helped deepen our understanding of global health and the social realities that shape access to care.
Through this experience, we didn’t just provide healthcare—we learned from the strength, wisdom, and spirit of the communities we served. It was a powerful reminder that the heart of service lies in partnership and mutual respect.
