This experience was primarily focused on outpatient medicine in the "consulta externa," at a newly-built private not-for-profit hospital. Working in the outpatient clinic provided opportunities to hone our skills in culturally-appropriate chronic disease counseling (diabetes is endemic), routine prenatal care, and pediatric acute care. In addition, we spent several days accompanying one of the staff physicians in the Emergency Room triaging cases ranging from Henoch Schonlein purpura to severe burns to vehicular trauma to simple colds. We also spent one day in a more remote rural community providing urgent consultations and getting a sense of the surrounding populations. The staff was very welcoming and my Spanish improved greatly as I had to learn to speak very clearly so that my message could make it through Tzutujil interpretation intact.

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