My name is Krishna Surasi and I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in May, 2010. In college I was pre-med and I planned to enter medical school immediately after the completion of my undergraduate studies. Things changed my junior year when I studied abroad in Puebla, Mexico for a semester.
In Mexico I realized how much I enjoy learning a foreign language and experiencing a foreign culture while living abroad. I had taken Spanish throughout high school and had kept up with it in college, but all of those years of studying the Spanish language in America put together were not even close to as gratifying as the four months I spent living in Mexico. My Spanish improved quickly and when I was finally comfortable speaking the language, I began to feel justified for having dedicated so much of my time in school to studying a language that I had previously never used outside of the classroom.
In addition to learning the language, living abroad gave me an opportunity to appreciate cultural differences and understand how pervasive cultural beliefs and practices are in all aspects of life. Now this type of utterance normally alerts me that the person talking is full of shit, but at my internship in Mexican hospitals during my semester abroad I saw first-hand how this observation correlates to medicine.
Being a doctor requires a lot more than being knowledgeable and giving orders. As far as I am concerned, a good physician does not stop at simply telling his patients what is wrong. A doctor’s priority should be more than just being right, it should be making people healthy. In order to accomplish this, a physician must be able to communicate with his patients in such a way as to convince them of the importance of being healthy and how they can realistically achieve their health goals given their particular circumstances. Being sensitive to cultural differences is a major skill for being able to do this.
When I returned home after my semester abroad, I was determined to live abroad again to improve my Spanish skills and increase my cultural competency to help me in my future career in medicine. I decided I would finish a major in Spanish Literature at Notre Dame and I would try to postpone entering medical school (a decision that was later made for me by every medical school that didn’t accept me my first time applying) to experience living abroad again.
Fast-forward to 6 months later and here I am in Ecuador preparing to be a volunteer English teacher with a non-profit organization called WorldTeach. I will be spending the first few weeks in the capital city Quito and later I will move to Ambato where I will spend the rest of the year teaching. I am excited for the opportunity ahead of me and I hope you will enjoy reading my blog and learning a bit more about what’s going on at 0º latitude.
