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A view of Lisbon, Portugal (an Atlantis site).
A view of Lisbon, Portugal (an Atlantis site).
View of Piazza Maggiore square and San Petronio church in the city of Bologna, Italy (an Atlantis site).
View of Piazza Maggiore square and San Petronio church in the city of Bologna, Italy (an Atlantis site).

Italy + Portugal

Lisbon + HMX & Bologna

$13,013

Overview

This program is made up of the following consecutive components, and takes place in the order shown (you visit the first city first, etc.):
Lisbon + HMX
Bologna

Destination Information

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Local Time Now:

1:31am

Official Languages:

Portuguese, Italian

Almost all alumni have not spoken the local language.

The Cities

Lisbon is a city that you want to discover little by little, seeing what appears in each neighborhood. For instance, Baixa is home to the Belém Tower and the Jerónimos Monastery, both declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. You’ll also find the original Museum of Cars and the modern Belém Cultural Center.

Oh, and you cannot forget to taste the delicious cream cakes!

The evening is the ideal time to visit Chiado and Bairro Alto. In the new part of the city, you can visit some noteworthy museums such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum or the National Tile Museum.

Along the coastal road of Lisbon, you can easily reach beaches and summer resorts that combine villas and hotels from the early twentieth century with marinas, terraces, and excellent golf courses. Continuing along the coast you will find world-famous surf spots, and also palaces scattered throughout the cultural landscape of Sintra, a World Heritage Site.

Bologna is also known for great cuisine, some of the best in Italy – the original home of balsamic vinegar, Parmesan cheese, Parma ham and Bolognese sauce. It’s a perfect location to immerse yourself in the Italian culture while enhancing your experience in the medical field.

What’s Included

Atlantis programs include ~20h/week of shadowing, housing, some meals, transportation, travel health insurance, and more. Airfare is not included but can be very affordable.

What’s Included

On Program Components

  • Approximately 20 hours of AAMC-compliant observation-only shadowing each week, usually in a different department each week
  • In most locations, small groups of 10–15 students
  • Student-doctor ratio of 1:1 or 2:1
  • A small set of our programs are not shadowing-based but rather “Service-Research Projects”, and these substitute the 3 above bullet-point items with a full-time project
  • 1 excursion per week: usually on Fridays + 1 excursion on the Sunday after arrival
  • Housing with rooms separated by gender (with 1–2 roommates or several housemates, depending on housing type)
  • Transportation in and around the city for certain program activities
  • Small daily breakfast, lunch during the excursions, + 2 weekday group dinners per week (including one farewell dinner)
  • Health insurance if traveling abroad: covers certain medical expenses due to accidents and sickness (conditions apply)
  • Staff available to greet and assist students at the recommended arrival airport for each location during a specific window.
  • Atlantis Site Managers in your city will be available when you arrive, assisting during the program, and on-call if any issues arise

Pre/Post Program Components

  • Basic admissions advising by someone experienced with medical school admissions
  • Mentoring session from an incoming top 10 medical school student
  • Guidance for how to leverage your Atlantis experience on “Uniqueness Projects,” giving you the chance to create your own initiative, club, or non-profit to uniquely help connect healthcare professionals between Europe and the U.S.
  • HMX online course for pre-med students, with the potential to earn a certificate from Harvard Medical School upon completion. This course is not-for-credit, and is only available in some of our programs; our cities page clearly identifies programs that include HMX
  • Support for requesting course credit from your university wherever this is possible

Dates & Availability

  • Summer Break 2025

Dates

Price

Availability

June 21, 2025 - August 1, 2025 6 weeks 3 weeks in Lisbon
3 weeks in Bologna

$13,013

Full

You may pay over time, fundraise, consider scholarships, and more. Learn about our significant partial need-based scholarships here.

Financing & Aid
Apply

Participants may transfer to another program or receive a refund up until a predefined amount of time before the start date.

Hospital or Partner Overview

Lisbon + HMX Overview

Bologna Overview

Atlantis is an opportunity of a lifetime…The program helped catapult me to a full-tuition (and generous living stipend!) merit scholarship at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine where I currently attend and will graduate with an MD.

Selena Pasadyn headshot.
Selena Pasadyn

Atlantis ‘16

Harvard ‘16, Cleveland Clinic MD ‘21

I believe that highlighting the Atlantis experience significantly bolstered my candidacy and helped lead to numerous eventual [medical school] acceptances I was fortunate enough to receive.

George Bugarinovic headshot.
George Bugarinovic

Atlantis '16

Johns Hopkins '15, Harvard Medical School '20

The Atlantis Fellowship has given me a broader perspective on the field of healthcare. The program has also brought wonderful people into my life.

Elorm Yevudza headshot.
Elorm Yevudza

Atlantis '16

Amherst College '19, Columbia '24

Alumni Outcomes
A flowering tree outside of a building.
A flowering tree outside of a building (Lisbon, Portugal).
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Excursions

Our excursions are designed to offer a deeper look into your host culture, for both the educational benefit and the pure enjoyment of exploring a new place with others who share your interests in travel and medicine. If you happen to make travel plans outside of your city for a weekend, and thus your travel plans conflict with the events your Site Manager has planned, we ask that you notify your Site Manager several days in advance so that they’re able to plan the excursion accordingly. Excursions range from historical tours to culinary and cultural explorations. Your Site Manager will inform you of the different excursions they have planned during your program orientation.

Atlantis students on a program excursion.
Atlantis students on a program excursion (Genoa, Italy).

Clinical Experience that Stands Out to Schools

Medical schools want 3 things: healthcare exposure, GPA/MCAT, and certain competencies. Uniquely, “360 Shadowing” gives you the best version of the 1st, frees you to focus on the 2nd, and cultivates/shows the 3rd to medical school admissions.

What Med/PA Schools Want
Why 360 Shadowing?
Two students walking out of a hospital wing.
Atlantis students in a hospital wing (Lisbon, Portugal).
Students tubing in the ocean in Greece.
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Watch the Atlantis Experience

Language Skills Not Required

Almost all alumni have not spoken the local language. English levels vary within the hospital, but no knowledge of the language is required for Atlantis to be valuable. There is English ability in enough places in the hospital for participants to benefit, as you can read in our testimonials. Moreover, a program in an English-speaking country would take away some of the value of Atlantis, particularly the intercultural perspective that Atlantis participants gain, in a world where many of your future patients in your career later on will not speak your language and will come from a different cultural background. Any possible language barrier you may encounter at Atlantis, even if slight, is also an opportunity to develop “resilience and adaptability,” one of the 15 AAMC core competencies for entering medical students.

Alumni Outcomes

Funding Your Future

The cost of Atlantis isn’t too dissimilar from the cost of many study abroad programs that you may find. And we’re here to help: from our extensive fundraising guide to flexible payment plans and financing options, we make the process simple and easy, allowing you to focus on what really matters.

How Financing Works
An Atlantis student smiling while shadowing abroad.
An Atlantis student on an excursion experiencing culture while shadowing abroad (Athens, Greece).

Hear More Directly From Our Alumni

Hear more from them on their experiences during and after Atlantis.

Alumni Outcomes
An Atlantis student standing outside the hospital where she is shadowing.
An Atlantis student standing outside the hospital where she is shadowing (Barcelona, Spain).

Bring a Friend

Consider bringing a friend to the same program you’re applying to. Although the vast majority of Atlantis alumni have gone on programs without knowing someone in their cohort, bringing a friend allows your experience to be shared in a unique way, while still allowing you one of the benefits of Atlantis: meeting new pre-health friends from across the country. Consider sharing this idea with your friends.

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students walking and smiling.
Atlantis students exploring together on a program excursion (Athens, Greece).

Med School Interview:
Atlantis Alum vs. Typical Pre-med

Compare a possible medical school interview of an Atlantis alum with that of a typical applicant by looking at responses to common questions.

Medical School Interview Impact
Greek ruins on a sunny day.

Gain the Exposure, Stats, and Competencies that Med Schools Want

Take the Quiz: Is It For You?
Speak/Ask An Alum
Receive Updates as New Programs Open/Close
  • The vast majority of alumni accepted into med/PA school said Atlantis “strongly” or “very strongly” impacted their admittance
  • 81% of alumni accepted into med/PA school said Atlantis impacted their passion for medicine
  • 93% of our pre-health alumni progressed on the AAMC Core Competencies for Entering Medical Students