04/08/2025
It’s not often that your pre-med studies take you halfway around the globe, or let you stand face-to-tusk with elephants.
Yet seven SUNY Cortland students got to make memories of a lifetime while getting in-depth medical experience during the university’s new Healthcare in Thailand program.
The three-week, three-credit winter session course was led by professors Christa Chatfield and Theresa Curtis of the Biological Sciences Department. The group stayed in Chiang Mai, a city of 1.2 million people.
“The food was amazing,” Curtis said. “The people were so incredibly friendly.”
Students got a sense of the breadth of medical care in the region at seven public and private medical facilities, completing clinical hours in fields including dental care, chiropractic care, medical services, physical therapy and traditional Thai medicine.
“In the morning you're watching ultrasounds with the OBGYN, and in the afternoon you're in a PT (physical therapy) clinic and then you're in the OR (operating room),” Curtis said. “It’s really diverse, you're seeing everything.”
Chatfield added that the chance to see the different-sized facilities — from rural to university-attached hospitals — is a unique educational experience.
“The Thai people are really open, so they would take you right to the patient’s bedside and take the covers off the patient to show you what's going on.”
What they experienced there ranged from mundane tasks like fulfilling pharmacy orders to witnessing the profound end of life of a young man who donated his organs.
SUNY Cortland’s healthcare in Thailand course evolved from an earlier Healthcare in Mexico program that began in 2016. Assisted by Cortland’s International Programs office and the educational organizations Loop Abroad and the Center for Engaged Learning Abroad, Curtis and Chatfield created the trip to Thailand to widen the focus of available medical experiences. They said that Chiang Mai offers easy access to a number of rural and urban facilities, something more difficult near campus.
The students’ clinical hours and debrief meetings are supplemented by a journal and final reflective paper.
Apart from their fieldwork, students devoted two days to local service projects. First, they painted a fence at a shelter for pregnant women and single mothers. Later they helped teach English to children at a public school. There, the Cortland students split up to lead groups of 25 children and invented games that used terms related to food, nutrition, exercise and the body.
“We were able to complete that project over the course of the day and it felt really nice to be able to give something back because they have been so generous with their time in the hospital settings,” Chatfield said. “It was good to do some volunteering near the end of our trip.”
When not working, the group was able to explore Chiang Mai, a locale given the title of Creative City by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
They chatted with a Buddhist monk, visited a rice farm, took a Thai cooking class and enjoyed the shops, night markets and food of the Chaing Mai. They even fit in medical lessons on nonhuman subjects with a veterinarian at the Elephant Nature Park, a shelter with 120 elephants and other animals like water buffalo, sheep, goats, dogs and cats.
“I thought the timing was perfect,” Curtis said. “Every day that we did medical rotations, it was 9 to 11 in the morning, and then from 11 to 1 we would break and go to these beautiful places for lunch that were always outside, so students got some fresh air. Then from 1 to 3 we’d do more medical rotations and then often we would have a lecture from a health provider.”
Based on this successful first visit, there will be another Healthcare in Thailand program in 2026. Chatfield and Curtis said they hope to add a talk with a Thai public health professional to the schedule to show the impacts different policies can have on a population.
“This study abroad experience will take you out of your comfort zone, expose you to diverse medical cases, and transform your view of global health,” Curtis said.
All students interested in next year’s journey back to Chiang Mai are encouraged to learn more about the program. Registration ends on May 1.