We offer an international health elective in your second or third year with Shoulder to Shoulder, an organization committed to improving the healthcare of rural Honduras.  The two-week experience would link you with other FM residents from across the nation.  This is a life-changing experience for those who participate.  Shoulder to Shoulder, the sponsoring organization is a private, non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) formed in 1996. It began providing healthcare services in rural Honduras in 1990, six years prior to its official incorporation. In the spirit of local empowerment, Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc., worked with local community leaders in Honduras to form Hombro a Hombro, a grassroots, community-based, non-profit NGO registered in Honduras since 1996. Shoulder to Shoulder and Hombro a Hombro work in tandem to achieve a single mission: to develop educational and health programs to help poor, rural communities in Honduras achieve sustainable development and improve the overall health and well being of its residents. We seek to address the health, education, economic and social needs of underserved communities in the poorest areas of Honduras.

Shoulder to Shoulder represents successful partnerships between poor rural communities and academic health centers. Volunteers from the United States include physicians, dentists, nurses, lawyers, engineers, business experts, builders and students. The central theme of our partnerships is mutual growth. Every project involves the provision of healthcare at the level of the community. This involves working in the most remote sites, often staying in communities without water or electricity, and sometimes sleeping on school floors. The students walk from home to home to see older and sicker individuals who cannot walk outside the confines of their own home to receive medical care.