Bridging Medical Barriers through Traditional Medicine in South America
Exploring new cultures to gain new perspectives is one of the many benefits of studying abroad. Such a skill has been vital to Maya Sahtout, a current medical student attending the UC Davis School of Medicine. With a longstanding curiosity for culture, her study abroad pursuits have been especially useful in fueling her interests regarding diverse communities and traditional medicine.
Bridging Cultural Gaps
As the eldest daughter of two Palestinian immigrants, Maya served as a cultural bridge and source of guidance for her parents. Notably, she reflected that she often had to help them with tasks related to translation, while also helping them navigate unfamiliar social and economic conventions. Looking back, Maya appreciates how this role provided her with independence and self-sufficiency, and noted how her experience growing up influenced her future career plans:
“I spent a lot of time being the bridge for my family with their different cultures. This inspired me to pursue medicine so that I can be the bridge to others and create treatment plans collaboratively with patients in a way that best fits and meets them where they are.”
Discovering Healthcare in Bolivia
Maya went on her first study abroad experience in Bolivia when she was 19, and it was there that she gained her first glimpse into healthcare and into working with underserved communities. She participated in a global health internship offered by UC Davis and Child Family Health International (CFHI) and reflected that the experience was challenging but, more importantly, rewarding. She said it was daunting at first because it pushed her outside her comfort zone. After further consideration, however, she appreciated the way it enabled her to build confidence and form connections with others. Most importantly, she recognized Bolivia as a “pivotal point” in her academic journey, as it solidified her desire to work in healthcare with multilingual and multicultural communities.
Traditional Medicine in Peru
After deciding on a career in medicine, Maya embarked on another study abroad experience in South America during the summer of her first year of medical school. For this excursion, she stayed in Peru for four weeks and gained valuable knowledge of traditional medicine. Maya found this aspect of the program especially intriguing, given her own background with her family’s use of traditional medicine and remedies.
With the Sacred Valley Health organization in Peru, Maya worked alongside other students to help support and learn about the needs of local indigenous populations in high-altitude communities. A noteworthy feature of this program was the education provided to students by promotoras, community members trained to administer health care and services. The promotoras were especially knowledgeable about herbal medicine, and Maya recalls learning a great deal from them. She even mentioned that one of her most memorable experiences from the trip was a hike led by a promotora when she visited the community of Patacancha, who identified various plants and their medicinal properties along the way. From this outing, Maya was intrigued by the hands-on experience of making herbal treatments under the promotora’s guidance, and such activities strengthened Maya's hopes of understanding the healthcare obstacles faced by multicultural and multilingual communities. In retrospect, it “inspired her to think [about] how to implement traditional and herbal medicine within [her] own communities” and broadened her perspective concerning the accessibility of medical treatments.
Overall, Maya noted the following takeaway from the experience in Peru, and stated what she hopes to carry forward in her schooling, career and life at large:
“I am most excited to find affordable and doable ways of healing and curing for my patients, making sure it aligns with their cultural values and goals, along with using my perspective of understanding different beliefs and ways of life to interact and think about everyone in my life.”
Looking Ahead
Currently, Maya is in her third year as a medical student and has applied her skills and insights from her undergraduate endeavors to her medical school experience thus far. Such experiences include undergraduate research, volunteering with the Shifa Community Clinic and an internship with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Sacramento. Notably, though, her experiences in South America have solidified her passion for pursuing medicine with an open mind to treat patients of all cultural backgrounds and work with underserved populations. For the time being, Maya is completing clinical rotations with the hopes of entering primary care and is furthering her research participation, with plans to present at a conference in the near future.