The Global Health Academic Concentration
Follow UC San Diego School of Medicine's GHAC students around the world.
Hello, my name is Nene, and I'm spending the summer in Maputo, Mozambique doing research on peripheral neuropathy in patients with HIV at Maputo Central Hospital. Working in the internal medicine wards at Maputo Central Hospital has been an incredible learning experience. Every day I'm surrounded by so many brilliant medical students, residents, and attendings. … Continue reading Experiencing Healthcare in Maputo: A Medical Student’s Journey
Introduction This summer, I spent sixty hours shadowing physicians and healthcare workers in Brasília. What stood out to me most was how Brazil’s unified health system (SUS) brings together public health, social work, and medical care to meet the needs of communities—often in ways that contrasted sharply with my experiences in the United States. The … Continue reading Community Care and Mental Health in Brasília
On my first morning in Quito, I stepped onto the third-story balcony of my host family’s home and was met with a quiet, beautiful surprise—a bright rainbow stretching across the misty sky. I had arrived the day before on a red-eye flight and, still adjusting to the altitude, had gone straight to bed. Waking up … Continue reading Inside Ecuador’s Healthcare System: My Time at a Centro de Salud- Quito, Ecuador
If someone had told me a few years ago that I’d finish medical school standing in an operating room in Mozambique—scrubbed in for a C-section or vaginal hysterectomy after just helping deliver twins and triaging a gynecologic emergency—I might have smiled and said, “That sounds like the dream.” And it absolutely was. Returning to Hospital … Continue reading A Beautiful Return: GHAC Rotation Reflection – Hospital Central de Maputo, Maputo, Mozambique, 2025
Sunset over Maputo Hello again! My final weeks in Maputo have been quite eventful and educational, although they went by far too quickly. Our research has been growing, and more departments are aware that we are looking to identify and help diagnose Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). There are many challenges faced within Maputo Central Hospital … Continue reading Exploring Maputo: Culture, Healthcare, and Community
My week in Mae Sot was short-lived and well-filled. Mae Sot is a resilient transient-dense town on the Thai side of the Thailand-Myanmar borderline. It was my first time seeing an open border, identical houses on either side of a shallow river that I would have mistaken as different neighborhoods of the same town--if not … Continue reading A Week in Mae Sot, Thailand
As the culmination of my medical school experience, I spent four weeks rotating across border health clinical sites, including the Cruz Roja hospital and Prevencasa clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, as well as in the asylum clinics located at the Sheraton and Ramada Hotels in San Diego through the UCSD Asylum Seeker Medical Screening and Stabilization … Continue reading GLOBAL HEALTH IN OUR OWN BACKYARD