A team from Geisinger College’s School of Medicine completed its first independently designed global health education mission in San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala, during the summer of 2025. The group, consisting of 10 participants, marked a shift from previous years when Geisinger students joined outside organizations for medical missions.
The mission was supported by the Jennifer A. Sidari, MD’13 Global Health and United Nations Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania funds. Planning began in 2022 with Sonia Lobo, PhD, RYT, associate dean for research & scholarship, and Wasique Mirza, MD, FACP, program director for Geisinger’s Internal Medicine Residency Northeast. Their goal was to develop a mission shaped entirely by Geisinger.
“We wanted to create something that was our own—something the school could stand behind and say, ‘This is a Geisinger experience,’” said Dr. Lobo.
In 2023 Alejandra Marroquin became involved as program lead. She explained: “I knew that Geisinger medical students could travel abroad to provide medical care, but the programs had to be vetted by the Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO). Fortunately, I’ve known about Friends of San Lucas in Guatemala since 2019, when I traveled as a counselor with undergraduate students and I was impressed. So I immediately started efforts at Geisinger with my colleagues to internally vet the San Lucas Mission program so we could offer it to Geisinger Medical students. St. Lucas Mission has been working with medical students for many years and has an established system that makes the whole operation a wonderful first-time medical experience for students.”
For this trip, unlike previous arrangements where external organizations led programming and oversight, Geisinger managed both curriculum development and implementation directly through collaboration with Friends of San Lucas in Guatemala.
“There’s a kind of assurance when we design it ourselves,” said Dr. Amanda Caleb, PhD, MPH, professor of medical humanities and director of the Center for Medical Humanities at Geisinger. “It’s a uniquely Geisinger experience. We know our students are getting the full benefit—clinical exposure, mentorship, and a structured curriculum.”
Participants included Phase 1 (rising M2) students who took part in summer immersion activities and Phase 3 (rising M4) students who received elective credit. Under supervision from Dr. Mandy Maneval and chief resident Dr. Sunmeet Singh in pop-up clinics across four rural villages near San Lucas Tolimán, they provided care for more than 100 patients facing conditions such as hypertension or diabetes.
Second-year student Diego Santos described his time on the mission: “It was exactly what I want to do as a future physician—actually provide care to people who need it,” he said. “Sometimes we were seeing a mom and her three kids who hadn’t seen a doctor in years. We didn’t just treat one complaint—we went through everything they’d been dealing with for years.”
Funding came from internal scholarships as well as support from regional organizations like the United Nations Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Geisinger College of Health Sciences continues its focus on community health improvement through education programs spanning medicine and nursing along with faculty development initiatives.
