Four days before the DukeEngage application deadline, students planning on applying to the Calhuitz, Guatemala program got a bit of a shock—the program was canceled.
The summer 2012 Calhuitz, Guatemala DukeEngage program was canceled Friday. The program, which was to be offered for the first time this year, was canceled due to the location’s distance from medical facilities, poor road conditions and the inability for helicopter evacuation. Only two students had submitted their applications by Friday’s announcement, though it is likely more were considering applying.
“We had some concerns about the ability to get students proper medical care in the case of an emergency, particularly in the evening with inclement weather,” DukeEngage Executive Director Eric Mlyn said.
Robert Malkin, professor of the practice of biomedical engineering who received his doctorate from Duke in 1993, was slated to be the faculty adviser for the Calhuitz program. Malkin said the major problem was that roads cannot be used during a rainstorm because the proposed site is very remote. As a result, the only possible evacuation method would be using helicopters, but there would be no way for International SOS—DukeEngage’s international emergency management partner—to land them at night.
Two students had already submitted applications for the Calhuitz program, Mlyn said. DukeEngage notified the students of the program’s cancellation Friday to give them time to apply to other programs by the Tuesday deadline and encouraged them to apply to other programs.
Sophomore Maneula Mejia’s was one of the students who applied before the program’s cancellation. She said she was surprised by the decision but is still excited since she has now applied to the DukeEngage in Peru program—even though she had to redo her entire application.
“I’m not terribly upset because I am still excited about the program,” Mejia said. “[The Peru program] just wasn’t my first choice.”
The program’s cancellation was announced on the DukeEngage website, which also listed other programs that fit the criteria many students used to select the Calhuitz program. These alternative programs include DukeEngage in Argentina; Peru; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jodhpur, India; and Mombasa, Kenya and Kakamega, Kenya. All of these programs focus on health care, similar to the Calhuitz program.
Mlyn and Malkin said they plan to find solutions to Calhuitz site challenges and offer a revised program for the summer of 2013.
“There are two possibilities: Move the program somewhere where emergency evacuation is not as difficult—since right now no one serves this area— or find a service [other than ISOS] that might do [the evacuations],” Mlyn said.
Malkin, also founder and director of Engineering World Health and faculty adviser for the Tanzania and Nicaragua DukeEngage programs, said that although disappointing, he felt that postponing the program was the responsible choice.
“It’s the right decision,” he said. “The students’ safety is the first concern.... It’s very unfortunate, especially for the juniors, but it’s the right thing to do to have all safety concerns met.
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