An international, group trip designed for PA students and healthcare professionals seeking meaningful patient exposure, cultural awareness, and real-world global health experience. Join us on a short-term global health trip to Belize, where you’ll provide essential clinical care in rural medicine.
rural clinical locations providing health services to underserved populations in the Myan Mountain region of Belize
Expected impact: I expect this experience to impact me both personally and professionally, while allowing me to help a few communities that have limited access to healthcare. Working alongside Belizean healthcare providers will give me the opportunity to learn how they care for patients when resources, diagnostic capabilities, and access to specialty care are limited. I believe there is a cool value in learning from providers who work in these environments every day.
Having spent much of my career in emergency and rural healthcare, I have seen firsthand how challenging it can be to provide high-quality care when resources are limited or when patients have difficulty accessing the healthcare system. I expect this experience to challenge me to think differently about what is truly necessary to care for a patient, how we use the resources available to us, and how we can better serve people in underserved communities.
How the learning will carry forward: For me, the most important part of this trip will be what I bring home with me. I want to return with a better understanding of how to practice medicine thoughtfully when we don't have every resource or specialist immediately available. I also hope to bring back a greater appreciation for preventive care, community health education, cultural differences, and the barriers that can keep people from receiving the care they need.
I will have opportunities to share these experiences with the other healthcare providers and students I work with, particularly those involved in rural medicine. As someone who practices clinically and is involved in healthcare education and rural healthcare operations, I have the opportunity to pass those lessons on to others (like the PA students and the medical attendants in Belize) and hopefully have an impact beyond the patients I personally encounter in Belize.
Last week, I had the honor of co-leading a team of nine PA students on a week-long medical mission through the Sibun Rainforest Reserve of Belize, in partnership with Global Health ImPAct. Together we hiked between four different Belizean communities, conducting home visits and running clinics for patients ranging from just 2 months old to 89 years old.
The communities we served reflected the incredible cultural diversity of Belize — Kriol, Mestizo, Maya, Hispanic, and Caribbean families, many of whom make their living through citrus farming, subsistence agriculture, and the region's growing ecotourism industry. Everywhere we went, we were met with extraordinary kindness, gratitude, and hospitality.
But the impact of this trip went both ways. While our patients received care they might not otherwise have had access to, every one of us who served as providers came away changed as well — reminded why we do this work in the first place.
