ABSTRACT
A central value of the Mexican affiliate of an international global health organization is to “re-humanize” medical residents after an often dehumanizing internship using a “transformative education” so they might learn to treat the “whole person” while simultaneously administering “preferential treatment for the poor” in the interest of social justice and human rights. Beyond aspiring to provide “the best quality of care” using the latest evidence-based medicine, pasantes are asked to “accompany” communities while living in the rural mountains during their state-mandated year of service. This article explores how healthcare providers navigate identity catalysts and grow to see themselves as social medicine practitioners in the container of the field and in proximity to the poor. It follows how this expanded professional identity for some transforms into a calling and, ultimately, how a year of service in the “pasantia” and a “transformative education” affects the medical encounter.
