I knew the Atlantis Fellowship would provide me with much-needed experience of shadowing doctors and witnessing the practice of medicine first-hand. Applying to medical school is highly competitive, and I felt as though this program can provide me with a great competitive edge. I also had the ability to observe healthcare within a publicly-funded system, which is something I have always considered very important.
Atlantis not only provides an incredible amount of exposure to a variety of different medical fields by allowing students to rotate specialties, it also helps students bolster their medical school applications by offering pre-med students unique access to volunteering, MCAT preparation courses, and research opportunities in the medical humanities.
A memory I will cherish for the rest of my life was experiencing New Years Eve with the Atlantis Fellows on the top of a 700 year old castle.
Shadowing with Atlantis further instilled within me the importance of studying medicine cross-culturally. I learned a lot about Portugal's healthcare system as well as the close nature of the patient-physician relationship in Portuguese culture. I'm glad I got to learn medicine from a different perspective through the doctors I shadowed.
I plan to attend the NIH Summer Internship Program during the summer of 2017, become a trained EMT, and be accepted into a medical scribe program during my gap year. In the end, my ultimate dream is to attend medical school and become a pediatric surgeon.
The Atlantis Fellowship has helped equip me for my future by giving me tremendous cultural experience that I can take with me for the rest of my life and into my future career. It also gave me a broadened perspective as a future physician by deepening my understanding of healthcare in a global context by observing host countries that see government as having a greater role in healthcare.