MEDLIFE (Medicine, Education, and Development for Low Income Families Everywhere) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to helping families in South America achieve greater freedom from the constraints of poverty, and empowering them to live healthier lives.

This course serves as preparation for a 2-week medical and clinical volunteer trip to Peru during summer break. This brigade offers unique hands-on clinical opportunities for students of all disciplines. As part of the UC Berkeley MEDLIFE chapter, students will learn the necessary tools to understand the importance of sustainability in medical outreach, in addition to Spanish skills that will enhance clinic experience and patient care. Moreover, our course also covers greater public health issues.

In this course, students will be:
• Learning basic conversational Spanish and medical Spanish phrases that will aid them during their interactions with patients in their trip.
• Learning about “voluntourism”, accessibility to health and other issues pertinent to Public Health or the service trip abroad.
• Participating in interactive modules that prepare them for the different clinical stations (including dentistry, pharmacy, vitals, etc)
• Helping the chapter with fundraising to provide trip scholarships.
• Expected to continuously question their role as a participant in a short-term medical volunteer trip.