PACH Ecuador Internship

I spend 8 weeks in Ecuador with PACH in the summer of 2022 when I was an MPH student. We were supposed to spend almost the entire 8 weeks in Riobamba, but ended up stuck in Guayaquil for almost 2 weeks because of a national strike. The program did a great job adapting to this unprecedented situation and organized lots of activities for us to do in Guayaquil. Overall the program was very responsive to each intern's interests and professional goals and allowed us to focus on the topics that interested us the most. There were great opportunities to observe surgeries with local and visiting doctors, and because I speak Spanish I was able to help interpret for a visiting American doctor. My favorite part was visiting indigenous communities near Riobamba and learning about their health and nutrition needs.