I, as a resident, will be traveling with a team of medical providers to Santiago Atitlán to work at Hospitalito Atitlán, a rural community hospital located about four hours from Guatemala City. This region has very limited access to specialty care. Our group will provide upper endoscopy and colonoscopy procedures, as well as digestive health clinic appointments, over the course of one week. This effort will have a significant impact on the local population, as most individuals in the area cannot access or afford these services elsewhere. Currently, patients requiring endoscopy must travel to Guatemala City, which is often financially and logistically unfeasible. By offering procedures at a nominal cost—less than 5% of what is typically charged in the city—and by providing gastroenterology consultations, we aim to bring much-needed subspecialty care to a community that otherwise has none.
The communities surrounding Lake Atitlán and the Sololá region of Guatemala will greatly benefit from this project. Many of the residents are members of indigenous populations who have come to trust Hospitalito Atitlán as a reliable source of compassionate, high-quality medical care. However, subspecialty services—particularly in gastroenterology—remain largely unavailable to them. Digestive health issues such as gastric cancer, chronic abdominal pain, Helicobacter pylori infection, liver cirrhosis, colonic inflammation, polyps, and gastritis are common in this area. Our team will address these needs by offering both endoscopic procedures and outpatient consultations. This region was selected due to its clear medical need and limited local resources. Without this initiative, most patients would be unable to access specialized gastrointestinal care or endoscopic procedures because of the prohibitive costs and distance to larger medical centers.
The impact of this project will extend beyond the communities of the Lake Atitlán region—it will also deeply influence our team, including myself as a medical resident. For the people of Lake Atitlán, this initiative will mean improved access to high-quality healthcare and continued trust in Hospitalito Atitlán as a dependable medical resource. For our group—most of whom work together in a single endoscopy unit in Virginia—this trip represents an incredible opportunity for learning, collaboration, and team building. One of our nurses will even be flying for the first time!
From my perspective as a resident, this experience will be invaluable. It will allow me to apply my training in a resource-limited setting, gain insight into global health disparities, and strengthen my skills in patient care and cultural humility. The opportunity to serve alongside my mentors and colleagues in such a meaningful context will be both personally and professionally transformative. Serving others in a different part of the world brings renewed energy, perspective, and purpose—qualities that can help prevent burnout and rekindle passion for medicine. Upon returning home, I hope to share our experiences with others in our department and encourage more trainees to participate in service-oriented work. As is often true of medical mission trips, those who serve often find that they receive just as much as those they aim to help—through growth, gratitude, and a deeper sense of calling in medicine.
During this trip we were able to evaluate 59 hepatology patients. We completed fibroscans on them and provided counseling on diet and exercise. We also completed about 60 EGD/CSYs where we biopsied and treated any pathology. We also completed an educational presentation to the medical team at the hospital about MASLD.
