Who knew that a study abroad for one week could have such an immense impact on a person.

Being able to have that once in lifetime experience of experiencing the healthcare system in a completely different country is indescribable. The study abroad aided in strengthening my desire to continue down the medical field path and even motivated me in trying to go to medical school and become a doctor. It even opened me up to the idea of working in specialties like OB GYN or even surgery.

It also inspired me to learn to become more fluent in Spanish. I already took 5 years of Spanish in high school and can have a decent conversation in the language, but I especially want to become more familiar with the language in the medical context. Mostly due to the fact that while we were shadowing doctors, close to none of the patients knew how to speak English. Even some of the doctors had a hard time translating their consultations into English for us to understand. I found myself often trying to help and translate for my shadowing groups, and that was the motivation I needed to understand the language better and to become fluent by getting a minor in Spanish. Mostly because it helped me realize that while we live in the United States, not everyone knows how to speak English. The United States is an incredibly diverse country and as a first-generation student who speaks a foreign language that my parents immigrated from (Slovak), I understand the importance of being able to converse fluently and especially medically. For example, my grandmother immigrated from Slovakia and barely speaks an ounce of English, has contracted diabetes and heart complications. It's very hard for her to talk with the doctor when she has her appointments without one of her family members with her (whether it's me, my mother, or sister).

To be very honest I was so nervous about studying abroad, I had heard so many good stories of people studying abroad but was worried that I would have a difficult time branching out and making new friends. Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about. By the end of the program, I had created such incredible memories and bonds with people that I didn’t even know existed on my campus before the program. I will never forget the people I met there, the experiences we shared together clinically and culturally. Being able to sit in the wooden patio of a coffee farm in the middle of a Costa Rican rainforest for an authentic breakfast that smelled like home with the same people that I scrubbed into surgery with while smelling the pheromones of disinfectants that lingered in the air created friendships that will genuinely last me a lifetime.

No amount of words can explain how thankful I am for this experience that I could honestly write about forever. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you MSU for making this study abroad possible for me.

Name: Monika Torkos
Status: Freshman
Major: Human Biology
Hometown: Troy, Michigan
Program: Global Health: Costa Rica – Pre-clinical Observation