Today is my last day in Buenos Aires, and I am so grateful for the experiences I had on this trip! Today started off with our final presentations at Austral-our topic was the Ministry of Health. I feel like during these past two weeks, I developed a completely new perspective on Argentine Healthcare. It’s hard to grasp certain concepts of fragmentation or problems with healthcare until you are fully immersed, like we had the experience to do. Seeing the differences in public vs private hospitals solidified my overall understanding of how funding and resource management is allocated and their different priorities. They had different mission statements that reflected their most prevalent challenges. For example, the public hospitals centered around getting enough resources and beds, while private were focused around patient experience. It was fulfilling to listen to all the final presentations and see our studies come together.

After presentations, me and a small group went to walk around San Telmo, which is such a gorgeous area. I loved the stone streets and the old and rustic architecture. We went to their big market, where I did a lot of shopping. We also had delicious choripan sandwiches. Choripan is probably my favorite Argentinian food. However, one thing I won’t miss are the long meals at restaurants-most meals are at least 2 hours long. They have a more relaxed pace compared to the United States. One thing important to note is that at the end of the trip, I definitely feel more “on schedule” as a typical Argentinian- I eat meals much later, and its interesting to see how I have adapted over the past two weeks.

To conclude my final blog post, I am so appreciative of the experiences and lessons I underwent in Argentina. I met some amazing people as well, and will always remember this trip!