¡Bienvenidos! Welcome to my website, and thanks for your interest in my project. I'll start with a little background information on me, just so you know who you're journeying with a little better. My name is Colleen Boyle and I am a senior at the University of Notre Dame. I'm majoring in Anthropology and Pre-Health Studies, with a minor in Poverty Studies, and I have a very strong interest in Latin America.
I wanted to go abroad before I graduated and explore my interests in poverty and health in Latin America, with the hopes that such an experience might help me determine my path after Notre Dame. I applied for and happily received a summer internship grant through the Kellogg Institute of International Studies and was placed at a Peruvian nongovernmental organization (NGO) named VivePerú. In some of the following pages, you'll find out exactly what my volunteer work entailed, and if you're interested, how to get involved yourself with VivePerú's volunteer programs.
Why this project?
I gained an immense amount of practical knowledge, especially of Spanish medical terminology and the fundamentals of basic medical procedures, while shadowing the Peruvian doctors at my site. Observing patient consults and reading patient histories provided countless opportunities for me to think about the doctor-patient relationship, as I learned it to be in Peru, compared with what I had experienced in the United States. While thinking about these experiences, my attention also was drawn to the social and cultural factors that might influence this relationship, and how those factors influenced a patient's involvement in his or her own health. These factors, including the dynamics of gender and power and knowledge and power, appeared have a significant role in the health decisions made between Peruvian doctors and patients, particularly for women.
These questions couldn't be answered in 10 weeks as a volunteer, but I brought them back with me when I returned to the U.S., hoping that I might grapple with them more in an academic framework and make some sense out of my experiences. And, after a semester's worth of thought and discussion with my classmates, I have a website that identifies a few issues from my summer musings and analytically explores them further, hopefully to the extent that someone else might take interest. I couldn't have asked for a better place than Peru to deepen my interest in these themes, as my worksite fulfilled all three of my interests perfectly.
I hope you learn something about Peru after having visited my site, and enjoy browsing the pictures I've shared of this exquisite country.