Student Experience

On behalf of the volunteers, staff, and the people of southern Belize, we thank you for your support of Hillside Health Care International and for your interest in our program. Hillside offers multi-disciplinary, clinical rotations with learning opportunities in a variety of settings for post-graduate students and residents interested in hands-on practice and learning about health care from a global perspective. You will work in our freestanding primary care clinic, mobile clinics in remote villages, home health care, community education activities, and public health projects. Interested in being a student or volunteer? Email Kristine at studentsandvolunteers@hillsidebelize.org

Rotation Length: Four Weeks

All fees include on-campus housing.

Rotation Schedule (2024-2025)

Who can apply?

Our rotations are open to: medical residents, final year medical students, nurse practitioner and physician assistant students who have previous clinical experience, students from accredited US-based DPT programs or internationally equivalent programs, MPH students.

Hillside accepts applications from all countries; however, fluency in written and spoken English is required, as English is the official language of Belize.

Here are some suggested Public Health Projects.

Hillside Student Experience includes:

Work in our freestanding primary care clinic, mobile clinics in remote villages, home health care, community education activities, and public health projects.
Learn to evaluate patients while working through language barriers (Mayan, not Spanish) and cultural differences
Gain confidence in evaluation skills due to resource-limited settings without the diagnostic tools of a fully-developed health care system.
Gain a deep appreciation of how medicine and health promotion are conducted in a developing environment.

Hillside Educational Curriculum includes:

The Belizean Culture and Health System
Global/Public Health and the Social Determinants of Health
Clinical Medicine in a Resource-Limited Region
Interdisciplinary Learning
Culturally Competent Health Care

The clinic is closed on the weekends giving students the opportunity to take side trips in the unique Central American country of Belize or into neighboring Guatemala.