The Kutler Center Sophomore Fellowship Program awarded Arman Tabesh ’26 a $2,000 grant to go on a mission trip to Peru where he volunteered in a primary health clinic.
Tabesh said his project idea came from his interest in medicine and his desire to help those less fortunate than him.
“The first thing that came to mind when going overseas and being able to travel is the inequality when it comes to healthcare all around the world,” Tabesh said.
Tabesh said that half of the country is living on $3 a day and 20% of the population living in rural areas do not even receive healthcare. Following his trip, he said it is important to make people more conscious about the lack of government funding for healthcare and medicine in Peru.
“There’s not much awareness about [healthcare inequalities],” Tabesh said.”I know specifically Peru is tough because they have universal healthcare over there, so everybody is granted some form of healthcare. The Peruvian government is improving a lot, especially when it comes to health outcomes.”
While in Peru, Tabesh volunteered at the Centro de Salud hospital in Cusco and assisted in a lab. He said his experience widened his understanding about healthcare systems in South America and gave him a greater sense of appreciation for the higher quality of healthcare in the U.S.
“I learned a lot about just how their healthcare systems run, and through my research, a lot about how other countries run,” Tabesh said. “It led me to learn about disparities that even middle income countries face. All the hospitals and clinics are so understaffed. There are so many issues many countries around the world face, and I was grateful to be able to experience that firsthand and for being in the US, where even healthcare gets a pretty bad reputation. But it is pretty incomparable. Right at the turn of the 21st century, the death count of Peru’s young people was extremely high. And even to this day, the numbers are in the middle in the world, but it is still something that continues to be slowly improving.”
