La Clinica Familiar de Luis Angel Garcia

Overview

Country: Guatemala
City/Town: Guatemala City
Type of Site: Clinical/Research
Organization/Institution: La Clinica Familiar de Luis Angel Garcia (CFLAG)
Year of Study: All
Dates: Open
Website: http://www.aidsguatemala.com

Requirements

  • MSI & MSII students must be members of the ¡Vamos Guatemala! student group OR pursuing a dual MD/MPH degree with an interest in completing a practicum in HIV/AIDS service delivery or research;
  • Spanish fluency is required students interested in clinical clerkships and/or research.

Application Procedures

Schedule an appointment with the CMHE Assistant Director of Global Health.

Program Description

La Clinica Familiar de Luis Angel Garcia (CFLAG) is a project of the non-profit organization, Asociacion de Salud Integral, located in the largest public hospital in Guatemala, Hospital San Juan de Dios. Established in response to the discrimination and poor access to services that People Living with HIV & AIDS (PLWA) received in the public hospital system in Guatemala, CFLAG has been providing services to PLWA since 1988. The services provided by CFLAG include HIV testing and counseling, inpatient and outpatient medical care, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), clinical diagnostic procedures, and access to antiretroviral therapy for both adult and pediatric patients. Through collaborations with local and international universities, CFLAG also developed a tuberculosis laboratory and participates in the multicenter Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) drug trials.

CFLAG has a number of departments that students have the opportunity to rotate through. These include:

  • pharmacy
  • adult medicine
  • pediatrics
  • obstetrics
  • psychology
  • social work
  • adult and pediatric nutrition
  • data management
  • a microbiology lab
  • a molecular biology lab.

As part of its bi-annual trip to Guatemala, the ¡Vamos Guatemala! student group spends 2-3 weeks shadowing the physicians and nurses of the CFLAG clinic through the various departments.

For MSIV and MPH students, the CFLAG clinic offers a variety of interesting and challenging clerkships and research opportunities. These students can spend 3-4 weeks rotation through the departments of their choice, conducting patient histories and physicals and presenting cases to the clinical physician on duty.

In addition to these clinical experiences, which would be finished by mid-day (the clinic closes after lunch), the CFLAG clinic collects a variety of data from its patients that could be mined for potential research projects. These databases include general patient information, HIV testing, child births, psychological measures and nutritional information.

In collaboration with the Director and Research Coordinator for the clinic, students could develop secondary data analysis projects with the current databases or explore opportunities for primary data collection.

Additional Information

Schedule an appointment with the CMHE Assistant Directory for Global Health.

Estimated Budget for 1 Month

Item

Cost (USD)

Honorarium 100
Airfare 500

Accomodation, Food,

Transportation (monthly)

800
Miscellaneous 500
Total $1,900