La Paz is in Baja California Sur.  The locals consider Baja California an island.   I can read maps, so before coming here I knew that it was actually a peninsula. After visiting a few times, I now know exactly what they mean.  The 1,000 plus miles of desert north to the US border is much more isolating than the Sea of Cortez.   Travel is almost exclusively over this body of water to the mainland. 

Baja California is most famous internationally for the high end tourist center of Cabo San Lucas (we do not offer an elective there) three hours south of La Paz, and the absolutely stunning ecologic treasures in this “desert meets the sea” area.  It is a center for whale watching, wind surfing, snorkeling and scuba diving, and deep sea fishing, It is a great ecotourism destination.

La Paz is a very friendly Mexican city of 500,000 people.  It is truly the only real city in Baja Sur.  We were asked to consult on the development of emergency care, and the government took a strong interest in the Advanced Life Support for Obstetrics course that we offer through the PACE Center (Programma de Actualizaccion Continua en Emergencias Medicas). We convinced some socially minded local developers to provide some scholarships for some of the providers in Baja California and we trained 6 providers and one instructor and a potential instructor at courses we gave in San Miguel de Allende  (where we established the ALSO Center for Mexico and in Guadalajara.

We had a senior MedSpanish Resident (senior because he already did our MedSpanish rotation twice before in San Miguel) request a different experience while working through our Spanish program.  Chris Perry is a 4^th year Emergency Medicine Resident from the Bronx and we paired him with Dr Heriberto Gutierrez, the only Residency Trained Emergency Physician in La Paz.  Dr Gutierrez is the Director of the Emergency Department at the IMSS hospital in La Paz and is the Director of the MedSpanish/PACE site in Baja California Sur.

We provided Spanish lessons over the internet with the teacher he had worked with before, using Voice over internet and Web Cam (Skype). We did develop an option for live instruction but we were able to lower the cost by $250 for the month by teaching this way.  It was surprisingly effective and allowed us to maintain the quality in the area of speciallzed language instruction. This will be a cost saving option for all MedSpanish students in the future who do rotations away from our center in San Miguel, as well as those who want to continue with their tutor when they return home.

We have secured agreements with the Health Ministry System and the IMSS Hospital in La Paz to bring MedSpanish students to Baja as part of the  PACE development program. We can place participants in the emergency department of the IMSS hospital or the General Hospital, and in the pre hospital system as well as in various other inpatient services (Ob Gyn, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Surgery). Community Oriented Primary Care clinics are also an option and we look forward to working with the Health Ministry’s Community Oriented Primary Care (“Integrative Health” ) Residency program as well as other government units to improve primary and emergency care.

TODOS SANTOS , “El Pueblo Majico”

What to Do:  There are opportunities to work in  rural mobile health unites as well as in some of the stunning towns within a few hours of La Paz, including Todos Santos.

On weekends there are a great many things to do in this wonderful area. We do not offer any experiences in Cabo San Lucas. 

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