David R. Burt, MD (Department of Emergency Medicine)

As an Emergency Medicine physician and director of the UVA-Guatemala Initiative (UVA-GI) I have an interest in all aspects of Global Health and all aspects of Guatemala!   The UVA-GI leadership team provides UVA undergraduates, 2nd-year medical students, MPH candidates, graduate students and Clinical Nurse Leadership (CNL) students the opportunity to combine health-related community engagement research with Spanish language immersion training and an introduction to Guatemalan culture & international health.  Students from different UVA schools and disciplines work individually or as teams to achieve common goals, while also completing objectives specific to their research project, course requirements, etc.  Students receive comprehensive mentoring during the entire “project cycle” and work very closely with our in-country team.  This helps to insure that all projects contribute to sustainability and are developed in close cooperation with host communities and organizations within Guatemala.  Currently we are working on projects associated with clean water delivery, cross-cultural education, cardiovascular risk assessment, women’s health, built-environment engineering, resource limited data networks,  carbon-credit financing, EMS networks and Deaf Culture in Guatemala….to name a few!