Anesthesiology residents at Albany Medical Center continue to show great interest in traveling to underserved countries to participate in providing medical care to the patients there. The most recent of these trips was to San Raymundo, Guatemala, in February 2013. Previous medical missions included trips to Haiti in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake and Ecuador in October 2010.
Guatemala: The northernmost of the Central American nations is located just below Mexico and north of Belize and El Salvador. The country consists of three main regions – the cool highlands with the heaviest population, the tropical area along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, and the tropical jungle in the northern lowlands (known as the Petén). The land has 34 volcanoes; four of them are active. Once the site of the impressive ancient Mayan civilization, Guatemala was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. Guatemala became independent from...
