FYI. Please
contact them directly for further information.
Dear Advising Colleagues,
The University of Southern California’s Somos Hermanos Student Immersion
Program is currently accepting applications for both the July – December
2010 and the January – June 2011 program sessions. The goal of our
program is to increase the number of bilingual and culturally competent health
care providers in the U.S. through a six-month intensive language and culture
immersion experience in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
Students from any university who are between
undergraduate and graduate school in the health care professions (e.g.
medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, public health, etc...) are
eligible to participate in this program.
We would appreciate it if you would take the time to
review our website and send our interest e-mail (below) to your
university’s pre-health list-serv or any students whom you think would be
interested in participating in the upcoming or future sessions. If you
have any questions, please feel free to e-mail us.
The application deadline for both the
Fall Session (July through December 2010) and the Spring Session (January
through June 2011) is February 15, 2010.
We hope to hear from you soon,
Joe Herrold and Elise Wach, Directors
USC Somos Hermanos
Student Immersion Program
Gina Camello, M.Ed.
Director for Admissions
Keck School of Medicine, USC
1975 Zonal Avenue, KAM 100C
Los Angeles, CA 90089-9021
(323) 442-2552 ph.
(323) 442-2433 fx.
Dear Pre-Health Students,
The USC Somos Hermanos Student Immersion Program is currently
accepting applications for both the July – December 2010 and January
– June 2011 program sessions.
Somos Hermanos aims to reduce the health care
disparity experienced by Latinos by increasing the number of bilingual,
culturally competent Health care providers in the U.S. The SIP is a
six-month language and cultural immersion program based in Quetzaltenango,
Guatemala. The program combines intensive Spanish instruction, a comprehensive
lecture series, socially and culturally relevant volunteer projects, weekly
activities, and trips to El Salvador and Mexico to ensure our participants gain
the language capability and cultural competency desperately needed to serve
marginalized, Spanish-speaking Latino populations.
The SIP targets students who have completed their
undergraduate education and are taking a year (or more) off before continuing
on to graduate school in the health professions. We accept students who
will be attending graduate school for medicine, dentistry, nursing, psychology,
physical therapy, public health, and other health-related fields.
“I went and saw my first
patient a couple weeks ago and of course, he only spoke Spanish. I went into
the room with a second year student I was paired with (and who did not know I
spoke Spanish), and he proceeded to ask the patient the usual beginning
questions. When I could tell that the patient did not understand him, I began
translating the questions into Spanish and translating his responses into
English to tell the second year student. Completely surprised at first by my
fluency, the second year began telling me questions to ask him, which I did
quite easily and effectively. I ended up translating both ways - the
patient’s entire history and physical exam, without the aid of anything or
anyone. This was exactly why I wanted to do Somos Hermanos, but I got that out
of it, and so much more that I couldn’t have anticipated.”
- Quote from a past participant currently attending
medical school in the US.
The application deadline for the Fall
2010 Session (July -
December) is February 15th, 2010.
The application deadline for the
Spring 2011 Session (January - June) is also February 15th, 2010.
For more information regarding our program, please
visit our website at: www.somoshermanos.org,
or e-mail us at [log in to unmask].
We look forward to hearing from you soon,
Elise Wach and Joe Herrold
Directors
USC Somos Hermanos
Student Immersion Program