Stanford-based Programs
Internships and Other International Health Learning
Opportunities for Undergraduates
ACT-NOW!
David Katzenstein, MD; Associate Professor of Medicine - Infectious Diseases
Locations: South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Thailand, Israel, Uganda, Spain, Portugal, China
Participation: undergraduates
Dr. Katzenstein is one of the principle investigators, working in the United States and in Africa for over ten years in collaboration with Stanford University and the University of Zimbabwe, who is researching affordable treatment for HIV/AIDs in Africa.
Asian Liver Center Summer Internship
Samuel So, MD; Professor of Surgery
Locations: Stanford
Time: summer
Participation: undergraduates and graduates
The Asian Liver Center at Stanford University is the only non-profit organization in the United States that addresses the high incidence of hepatitis B and liver cancer in Asians and Asian-Americans. Interns are needed for grassroots community outreach, developing educational programs, producing mass-media materials, and participating in advocacy efforts.
Child Family Health International (CFHI)
Evaleen Jones, MD, MPH; Founder and Medical Director, CFHI;
Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford Family and Community Medicine
Location: Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, South Africa
Times: summer, fall, winter, spring
Participation: undergraduates, medical students, residents, health professionals
Child Family Health International’s (CFHI) Global Health Service-Learning Programs combine instruction, experience, service, and reflection to create a model that supports physicians and clinical sites abroad, addresses the healthcare needs of the underserved, and adds an unforgettable experiential element to each program participant’s education.
CFHI programs bring service-learning into hospitals and clinics around the world, allowing participants to gain insight on the contextual constructs of illness and healing in foreign settings. Program Alumni return from the host country with new perspectives on healthcare systems and delivery in places where resources and supplies are extremely limited.
Early Clinical Experience in International Family & Community Medicine (INDE 284)
Sam Le Baron , MD, PhD; Professor of Family and Community Medicine
Location: Mexico, South Africa, India, China, and Tibet
Times: Periods 1-12 available, full-time for 4-8 weeks
Participation: medical students, undergraduates who meet prerequisites
An international experience for preclinical medical students (and undergraduates by special arrangement). An interactive early clinical experience with physicians, community leaders, health care workers, and patients in Mexico, South Africa, India, China, and Tibet. The course emphasizes community health from local and global perspectives. Course activities may include seminars, discussion and independent study. Undergraduates are not eligible to apply for the South Africa site. Undergraduate applicants for Mexico should apply though International Alliance in Service and Education (IASE), and for the Asian sites through Volunteers in Asia (VIA). Medical students should apply through the Center for Education in Family & Community Medicine. Conversational Spanish is required for the Mexico site.
India Clinical Internship (formerly NCI)
BinBin Jiang; Graduate student, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Location: India
Times: summer
Participation: undergraduates, graduates, medical students
NCI is a Stanford-based student organization that offers undergraduate, graduate and medical students the opportunity to undertake clinical internships in Nepal and India. (Note: The Nepal Clinical Internship has been discontinued due to political unrest and travel warnings.)
Project Dosti
Location: India
Time: summer
Participation: undergraduates
This Stanford student-run program provides participants with an opportunity to learn more about India, create connections with local communities, and work with some of India's foremost social leaders. In the field, Dosti volunteers work towards fulfilling a recognized need in a particular community. Past projects have included social, health, and economic slum surveys; designing interactive educational curricula for urban and rural youth; community health education; and raising funds and providing supplies for local projects.
Roatan Clinical and Public Health Internship
Jennifer Miller; Director of R.C.P.H.I.
Location: Honduras
Time: summer, fall, winter
Participation: undergraduates, graduates, medical students
Through one-month to three-month internships, R.C.P.H.I. interns will have the opportunity to learn about pediatric medicine while working alongside American and Honduran doctors, residents, medical students, nurses, and other health care workers. Students can also intern in an HIV outreach clinic, volunteering in private family medicine clinics run by Honduran physicians and missionaries, or carrying out their own individual public health projects or research.
Stanford Papua New Guinea Medical Project
Kelly Murphy, MD, Surgery - Emergency Medicine
Location: Papua New Guinea
Time: summer
Participation: undergraduates, graduates, medical students, doctors
Through the collaboration of Stanford University students and faculty with the indigenous people of the Sepik River Basin, the project hopes to establish a system of health care stations along the Sepik River. Volunteers live among the people, and stock and manage the clinics. While the project falls into the realm of preventative medicine, it provides interested students with a course curriculum at Stanford, focusing on tropical medicine and international healthcare. Such information is valuable in training of village health aids in Papua New Guinea to care for their own communities.
Students for International Change (SIC) Tanzania
Laura Hyde, Claire Nordeen, and Simran Bindra - Stanford coordinators
Location: Tanzania
Time: spring, summer, fall
Participation: undergraduates, graduates, medical students, doctors
SIC is a non-governmental organization (NGO) committed to limiting the impact of HIV/AIDS in northern Tanzania and to providing high-quality service-learning opportunities for future leaders in international health. Volunteers teach classes about HIV prevention in schools and communities around the town of Arusha. They also offer a free, mobile HIV testing and counseling service and provide home-based care and support to AIDS patients and their families.
Unite for Sight
Jennifer Staple, Founder, Unite for Sight; Stanford Medical Student
Peter Egbert, MD; Professor of Opthalmology, Stanford School of Medicine
Location: Tanzania
Time: spring, summer, fall, winter
Participation: undergraduates, medical students, residents, and health professionals
Unite For Sight is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Volunteer Teams work with partner eye clinics in developing countries to provide eye care and eye health education programs. Additionally, vision screening and education programs are implemented worldwide by volunteers working in ninety chapters established at universities and in communities. The Stanford Chapter of Unite for Sight supports its students engaging in both service-learning and research abroad.
World MD Vietnam Medical Project
Kelly Murphy, MD, Surgery - Emergency Medicine
Location: Ninh Binh Province (Northern Vietnam) and Quang Nam (Central Vietnam)
Time: 3 weeks during summer, varying with teams
Participation: undergraduates, graduates, medical students, doctors
The mission of the project is to “build a long and committed relationship with the communities in this area through small, reproducible health care delivery programs and medical education. The ultimate mission is to create an independent healthcare system, which is fully staffed, supported, and sustained by the local villages without outside influence or direction." Student volunteers (undergrads and medical students) are trained on how to recognize symptoms for illnesses commonly found in Vietnam and how to perform physical examinations. Once stationed, teams of 12 members staff the clinics and train local medics.
