Hello all, I am a new doctor in the united states who will have a flexible month to do some work abroad this coming october/november. I speak plenty of Spanish and would love to work somewhere in Costa Rica if I could find a clinic that needed my help. In fact, I don´t even need payment and could easily work for room and board because Massachusetts General, a big hospital in Boston, has agreed to cover most of my basic costs. Please let me know if you have any suggestions of whom to contact in order to set up such an opportunity,

Anne

Dear Anne,
I am sure you have left Costa Rica by now, but if you are ever planning on doing that type of thing, let me know. I am a medical social worker and work for Global Medical Training (you can see their website at gmtonline.org). They provide free medical care to very impoverished people in CR, Nicargua, and Panama, perhaps you would enjoy joining one of our trips. The overall goal of the program is to provide a real hands on learning experience for medical students and pre-medical students from the U.S., but the real benefit is seeing the soon to be Doctors helping so many people. So your primary focus would be teaching and patient primary care where you see many tropical diseases that you may never see in Boston like Leishmaniasis, skin fungus, dengue, parasites, scabies, lice, etc
Contact me in the future if you or one of your co-workers is interested in this unique experience.
Sondra L. Elizondo