Sidari Global Health awards provide Geisinger School of Medicine students with clinical experiences in Colombia

The students, who will graduate from Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine on May 10, are:
o Richard Alfonso Callum, MD4 : He'll go on to a family medicine residency at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
o Karla Feeley, MD4: She'll go on to an internal medicine/lifestyle medicine residency at Kaiser Permanente, Santa Clara, Calif.
o Nayoung Lee, MD4: She'll go on to a medicine-pediatrics residency at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.

Feeley, MD '25, said she "recruited" her friends, Callum, MD '25, and Lee, MD '25, to join her - but they didn't need much persuading.

"We all wanted to improve our Spanish and gain some cultural understanding to help us in our practice," she said. "It's kind of funny because we're all going to do some kind of primary care, but we're all approaching it differently. Richard is interested in family medicine and Nayoung is doing med-peds because she really wants to work with children. I'm doing internal medicine because I'm more interested in working with adults - specifically in lifestyle medicine."

In addition to working on her language skills, the experience gave Feeley a greater understanding of health systems. "I'm a big fan of integrated health systems, which is part of why I ended up at Geisinger and also why I'm going to Kaiser Permanente for residency. I like to think about the way systems shape how we practice medicine. I feel that the system we have in America in some ways frames the paradigm of medicine in ways that I didn't quite expect."

Callum agreed, noting that although sometimes his Colombian counterparts lacked some luxuries - like certain antibiotics and sophisticated technology - they had an abundance of
patience.

"They had a calmness about them," he said. "I guess it was a little frustrating for me because in the U.S., it's like 'go, go, go.' My mentors in Colombia would often have to tell us, 'Tranquilla.' I would sometimes feel myself getting worked up over little things and they'd be like, 'Relax. We'll take care of it.' That composure was inspiring."

While culture and big picture systems science were bonus lessons, the most important goal - improving Spanish language skills - was also achieved. The students say immersion is the best teacher.

"My Spanish really improved dramatically from week 1 to week 3," Lee said. "I think the biggest thing was my comprehension. When you're surrounded by Spanish or any new language you're forced to learn, you're forced to understand. It really accelerates your comprehension. The biggest surprise was a pleasant surprise: so many words are Latin-based in medicine that a lot of the words are the same in English and Spanish, you just say them with a different accent."

The Jennifer A. Sidari, MD '13 Global Health Enrichment Award was established to provide educational stipends to students interested in serving as medical volunteers abroad.

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