This four-week clinical and cultural immersion program in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, offers participants the
opportunity to gain firsthand experience within Mexico’s public primary care system. Participants work
alongside local health professionals in Centros de Salud—government-run primary care clinics that serve as
the foundation of community-based healthcare delivery. These first-level clinics, located throughout the region
from Bajos de Chila to Santa María Colotepec, provide comprehensive services, including preventive care,
health education, disease detection and management, and reproductive health.
The program emphasizes primary care delivery in low-resource settings and provides valuable insight into how
socioeconomic and cultural factors influence access to healthcare. Participants rotate through multiple
specialties, including pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency medicine, and preventive medicine,
thereby developing a holistic understanding of community-centered health systems.
A typical weekday includes 4–6 hours of supervised clinical rotations, followed by Spanish language instruction
at a local school (20–30 hours total over the program). There are also frequent meetings and lectures to further
learn and reflect on our experience. Participants reside with pre-vetted local host families, facilitating cultural
exchange and daily Spanish language immersion. The experience is designed to foster cross-cultural
understanding and professional growth in global health contexts.
This program offers us the opportunity to care for the local communities in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and learn more about social determinants of health and access in low-resource areas. CFHI is committed to ethical involvement, so many of the program fees go towards the local communities in which the programs are located. Through my medical education and training, I have cared for children and families from a wide range of backgrounds. I’ve seen how language barriers, limited access to care, and cultural disconnects can complicate even the best clinical intentions. These experiences have affirmed one of my long-term career goals – to provide high-quality, culturally sensitive care to Spanish-speaking and underserved populations within pediatric primary care. I joined our residency program’s global health track to continue my learning in this area; when applying, I
mentioned how I would love to go somewhere in Latin America again, primarily to work on my Spanish-speaking skills and to be able to better serve those populations. I later prepared and
presented a talk on the care of the immigrant/refugee child for the primary care pediatrician as my required presentation for our second year of residency. I am eager to participate in one of the
Child Family Health International (CFHI) programs in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, which stood out to me because of its strong focus on primary care and indigenous health while acting
ethically and giving back to the communities we will be in. The opportunity to learn from local practitioners in a different culture is an invaluable experience and will also prepare me to be able
to care for these populations and their unique health needs in my future practice.
The primary academic objectives of this program are to:
Enhance Spanish language proficiency, with a particular focus on medical terminology and communication with Spanish-speaking patients.
Understand the structure and function of community-based primary care in Mexico, including the integration of preventive and public health services within local clinical settings.
Analyze the impact of social determinants of health on healthcare delivery and access in low-resource settings.
Apply global health principles to future clinical practice, with the goal of improving culturally and linguistically competent care for Spanish-speaking populations.
I look forward to carrying the lessons from this program into my pediatric career, where I hope to advocate for health equity and provide compassionate, culturally sensitive care to
families across different language and cultural groups. By engaging directly with communities in resource-limited settings, I hope to deepen my understanding of the social determinants of health and enhance my ability to critically analyze how structural and cultural factors shape child health outcomes. Ultimately, I believe that to be effective in global health, you must first be willing to be changed by the world—its people, its complexities, and its lessons. That is exactly what I hope to do in Puerto Escondido, Mexico.
I had an amazing experience on my global health rotation in Mexico! It was so interesting to learn more about the health care system there as well as see the different medical settings (clinics, hospital). My Spanish language skills improved tremendously, which will be very helpful when I am caring for Spanish-speaking patients in my practice. This was truly an invaluable experience, and I am so thankful for the financial support from Doximity for helping make it happen!
