Global Health

In 2013, Dr. Sandra Riegler donated a sizable gift to our residency to establish the Endowment for International Travel for internal medicine and medicine-pediatrics residents. Dr. Riegler has been leading our international efforts for many years, and continues to share to her expertise and wisdom.

COVID-19 has placed a pause on our ability to travel internationally, but we intend to resume our overseas work as soon as we are able.

When this occurs, you can work in conjunction with organizations such as Village Life Outreach Project, Himalayan Health Exchange, Gorgas Course of Clinical Tropical Medicine, Ray of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse, and other private medical groups. You may also opt to create a designer international elective—recent trips have included Haiti, Belize, Northern India, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Excerpts from Resident Experiences Abroad:

“I welcomed the challenge of being an outsider in a strange place, working tirelessly within the constructs of culture and directly with the affected people. At University of Cincinnati, I joined the Himalayan Health Exchange and traveled for a month to northern rural India. Through the eyes of a physician, I was able to see how care was delivered in a different culture with vastly different resource availability. The spread and management of tuberculosis in this setting was completely unique from what I had experienced in my home programs. It became clear that while treatments for well-known diseases may be standard, the true and feasible solutions must be tailored for the specific situation and context. I saw the effects of disease and healthcare disparity on the faces of the people, their social constructs, and ways of life. I was grateful and humbled by my experience and it is one of the main drivers for my hopeful career path as an EIS officer.”

--Matthew C. Lambert, MD
University of Cincinnati Internal Medicine Residency

“I stood sweating in a village overlooking the Himalayan Mountains, watching as a young girl carried a limp child towards me with a plea in her eyes. As we spoke, she told me of her hike, which began early that morning and took nearly seven hours to complete. She hoped that we could save her baby…Part of building a physician/patient partnership includes understanding how life has affected our patients. We must understand that the social inequalities so glaring in the Indian village, are also present in our own hometowns.”

--Aditi Mulgund, MD
University of Cincinnati Internal Medicine Residency