Instituto Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud Fundación H.A. Barceló, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Strategic Partner: Stony Brook University School of Medicine, New York, United States
Cross-Cultural Medical Education: Advancing a Medical Student Exchange between an Underserved Area in Rural Argentina and an Academic Medical Center in New York
Fundación H.A. Barceló, School of Medicine and Stony Brook University School of Medicine partnered to develop a course that provided U.S. medical students with a first-hand experience of the social and health realities of under-served and marginalized populations in a remote area of Argentina through a one-month medical mission, and for Argentine medical students to learn about the current technologies and procedures used in hospitals through a month of clinical rotations at Stony Brook University Hospital.
The program consisted of bidirectional exchange of student participants. For the first portion in August 2018, two (2) students and one (1) faculty member from Stony Brooke University traveled to Santo Tomé, Argentina where they worked alongside local primary care physicians and medical students at The University Hospital “San Juan Bautista,” primary care clinics in the city, and outlying rural areas where care was delivered to indigenous and underserved populations. During their time in Santo Tomé, students participated in numerous clinical activities such as recognition and identification of health risk factors in the area, daily medical care in various clinics, home health care, being “on call” at the hospital emergency room, and clinical examinations of students at local schools. Students also attended case conferences twice weekly on the medical school campus and participated in academic rounds and didactic sessions in the medical school.
For the second portion of the program, three (3) students and one (1) faculty member from Fundación H.A. Barceló traveled to Stony Brook University in New York for a period of one month in September 2018, where they carried out their clinical rotation. During this experience in the United States, the students were able to learn about the American health system and the latest trends and innovations in the field of medicine. The students participated in daily rounds and conducted a complete patient history and analysis. In addition, the students had to present their patient histories to the Attending Physician, who was in charge of instructing each team as well as supervising them in their training as specialists in internal medicine with an emphasis on the doctor-patient relationship. To further their studies, they also had access to medical histories to study about the pathologies presented by the patients.
Through the development of this rural mission, Fundación H.A. Barceló and Stony Brooke University have promoted solidarity and cultural understanding, generating an international presence in the region, and improving the quality of life of an underserved and marginalized population.