Through one-month to three-month internships, HEAL Interns learn about pediatric medicine and public health first-hand by working alongside American and Honduran doctors, residents, medical students, nurses, and other health care workers on the island of Roatán, Honduras.
Weekday mornings are dedicated to working in the Roatán Volunteer Pediatric Clinic (RVPC), an outpatient clinic located in the Roatán Public Hospital and run by Global Healing. The student intern serves as Clinic Coordinator, locating resources (i.e. meds, specialty referrals, etc.) for patients, helping them through the logistics of utilizing these resources (i.e. locating funding for trips to the mainland for follow-up care), and notifying the volunteer physicians in the clinic about existing resources. Interns work with long-term patients individually, coordinating care among many health care providers and locating resources where there may not seem to be many. Students may also administer a public health survey created by our undergraduate and medical volunteers to provide the clinic with more comprehensive information about the characteristics and needs of the patient population.
Working alongside volunteer physicians from the United States in this unique clinical setting will provide students with the unique opportunity to learn from the physicians’ struggle to hone the skills they learned at home to the resources at hand.
After mornings in the clinic, HEAL Interns schedule their afternoons to work with Global Healing staff and local community health workers on projects that address local needs at the time of the internship. Opportunities include: interning in a local HIV outreach clinic, volunteering in private family medicine clinics run by Honduran physicians and missionaries, working with local public health groups to train community health volunteers, and carrying out other individual public health projects or research.
Interns usually live in Sandy Bay, a native community where several medical contacts reside. Sandy Bay is about 15 minutes from Coxen Hole, the capital and home of the Hospital Publico de Roatán, where the RVPC is located. Coxen Hole is also home to the island’s airport, largest port, banks, grocery stores, restaurants, and shops. West End, a scuba diving and tourist town, and West Bay, a beautiful beach area recently populated with upscale resorts, are also within 10-15 minutes of Sandy Bay. There are many other scattered barrios and resorts around the island, illustrating the dramatic social gap present in Roatán. One main paved road connects Sandy Bay, West End, and Coxen Hole to the rest of the island. Taxis, which often operate as “colectivo” or carpool rides, are the most common form of transportation for visitors.
Click here for The Stanford Daily article on the Student Internship [PDF version]. You can also read more about the program on the HEAL Blog by clicking here.