International Trip 2022: Costa Rica
Students and faculty members in the Robbins Healthcare MBA Program examined Costa Rica's healthcare system during the program's first global heath immersion Oct. 15-20, 2022.
The entire MBA Cohort of 46 students and four faculty members journeyed to San Jose to explore the country's public, private and governmental healthcare services, along with its social, economic and environmental sectors.
Robbins MBA Class of 2022
"It was a broadening experience for our students and faculty," Forest Kim, executive director of the Robbins Institute for Health Policy and Leadership and clinical associate professor, said.
In addition to Kim, faculty members who joined the trip included Dawn Carlson, director of the McBride Center of International Business; Patsy Norman, associate dean of Graduate Programs, and Scot Sanders, assistant director of Admissions, MBA Program.
Exploring a Different Way of Delivering Healthcare
Alvaro Salas
The group visited a private acute care facility, Hospital CIMA; Medtronic's Costa Rica manufacturing facility; and a frontline community clinic that provides health services for the Costa Rican Social Security Fund. During these tours, the students noted healthcare best practices that potentially could be applied in the United States.
Another high point of the trip was attending a lecture by Alvaro Salas, known as the father of the Costa Rican healthcare system. Prior to traveling to Costa Rica, the students were assigned to read an article by Atul Gawande that described the system. Salas was the main interviewee in the article.
Experiencing Costa Rica's Culture
Students at Starbucks Coffee Farm in Costa Rica
In addition to healthcare tours, the visitors also listened to a sustainability panel convey the Santa Ana Country Club’s vision for environmental protection and ecological balance. In keeping with that vision, the Robbins Institute group planted trees on a farm in the Salitral district. They also visited the active Poás Volcano and toured Rutas Naturbanas, a riverside greening project striving to connect people to
nature.
To gain socioeconomic and political perspectives of Costa Rica, the students traveled to a Starbucks coffee farm, listened to a political and economic overview of the country by a trade promotion agency and visited a career coaching and mentorship program for at-risk young adults. Overall, these interactions gave the students an awareness of the interrelation of the country’s social, economic and political sectors and the needs of people living in a developing nation.
