MEDLIFE (Medicine, Education, and Development for Low Income Families Everywhere) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to helping families in South America achieve greater freedom from the constraints of poverty, and empowering them to live healthier lives.

This course serves as preparation for an eventual 2-week medical and clinical volunteer trip to Peru during a break. This brigade offers unique clinical opportunities for students of all disciplines. As part of the UC Berkeley MEDLIFE chapter, students will learn the necessary tools to understand the importance of sustainability in medical outreach, in addition to Spanish skills that will enhance clinic experience and patient care. However, because we are in the midst of a global pandemic, we will also be emphasising a lot of global health ideas that will more clearly frame the historical and cultural histories of Peru, teach you about decolonisations of our mindset, and more in order to train you for any future global health work that you may be doing.

In this course, students will be:
• Learning basic conversational Spanish and medical Spanish phrases and the history and impact of language on culture in Peru.
• Learning about “voluntourism”, accessibility to health, the history of national health systems, and other issues pertinent to Public Health or the service trip abroad.
• Participating in interactive modules that prepare them for the different clinical stations (including dentistry, pharmacy, vitals, etc)
• Create educational plans for underprivileged Bay-Area communities
• Learn to create a global health framework when engaging with various communities so as to work with them equitably.
• Learn the differences between cultural sensitivity and cultural competency and how to properly interact with communities you may not be familiar with.
AND MORE!

Attendance is expected but we can work with you if you have a busy schedule. There is a midterm and final and some other smaller projects scattered throughout, all meant to help you engage with the material we are giving you!

You answer the application questions honestly, so we can get to know more about you and where you are starting from in relation to global health. But it's nothing to worry about, we just want to know about you!