Students walking through a hospital hallway.
Atlantis students in the hospital (Europe).

How It Works

Most programs take place over several weeks during college breaks in cities and hospitals (primarily) in Europe.

Overview

How Do Atlantis Programs Work?

Atlantis programs are short-term shadowing experiences in hospitals across a variety of countries. They take place over college breaks and offer pre-health students the chance to shadow doctors for 20+ hours per week, often in multiple specialties and countries. With over 100 hospital partners worldwide, Atlantis provides unmatched clinical exposure and a global perspective on healthcare.

Students examining medical equipment (Athens, 2019).
Atlantis students examining medical equipment while shadowing (Athens, Greece).
The Value of Atlantis

Clinical Experience That Fits Your Busy Schedule

As a busy pre-health student, trying to coordinate a few clinical experience and shadowing hours here and there is difficult and not always rewarding. Atlantis programs give you very meaningful clinical experience, and one that is good enough as to allow for the “luxury” of focusing more on grades during your semesters, while at the same time refining and showcasing most of the 15 competencies that medical schools assess candidates on. This overall experience is part of why our alumni can succeed in their healthcare paths post-college.

Students chatting with a doctor (Athens, 2019).
Two Atlantis students getting the opportunity to speak with a doctor while shadowing (Athens, Greece).
Agios Nikolaos on the island of Crete, Greece (an Atlantis site).

 

Who Participates in Atlantis?

Our students range from incoming college freshmen to recent graduates, post-college gap years, and post bacc students. Atlantis students:

  • Are at least 18 years old by their program start date (except for limited high school programs)
  • Have a genuine passion for healthcare, commitment to excellence, and professionalism
  • Go on to pursue a wide range of health professions: MD, DO, PA, Nursing, PT, OT, Pharmacy, etc.

Day in the Life

Mornings

You’ll have light breakfast fare provided, typically in your housing location with the other students. Embrace the traditional local breakfast and coffee, grab your white lab coat, name badge, and notebook, and then it’s off to the hospital!

Shadowing Days

You’ll spend, in general, 5 hours or more each shadowing day, four days per week, in the hospital. This time will be spent shadowing doctors whenever they are available. Whether they are conducting consultations, grabbing a coffee with colleagues, or orchestrating a femur reconstruction surgery, you will be at their side throughout it. As with any shadowing situation, you’re not shadowing every minute—sometimes you’re waiting, for instance. But on the whole, you’ll observe with greater depth, breadth, quantity, and intercultural perspective than you would in the majority of clinical experiences that pre-meds go through.

 

The result is that our alumni are admitted to 40 of the top 50 M.D. programs and beyond (and to other tracks), can perform well on interviews, and 93% of them progress on the competencies that medical schools value. If you haven’t watched it already, watch the video below to see three alumni describe their hospital experiences and the specialties they saw:

Group Activities

Two group meals during the week and a weekly cultural excursion are organized by your Site Manager. You’ll have an excellent opportunity to try the local cuisine, immerse yourself in the local culture, and bond with other pre-health students from across the U.S. in your cohort.

 

We often hear alumni, years after their Atlantis program, saying that they not only keep in touch with their peers, but they share pre-health tips, hold each other accountable on MCAT studying, debate application strategies, go on trips with each other inside the U.S., and invite each other to their weddings. These bonds are made during students’ time together in the hospital, but especially in group activities.

Watch our Atlantis Experience video below, which covers many elements of the overall Atlantis experience:

Free Weekends

Whether you want to explore your host city on your own or plan a getaway to another European city with a group, weekends are 100% free of programming and allow for a multitude of enriching experiences. That said, you should also consider staying in your city.

 

Hospital Experience

Atlantis allows students to shadow abroad for 20+ hours each week in different hospital departments. All hours are observation-only, following AAMC guidelines for pre-health experiences abroad (doing otherwise would jeopardize your Med/PA applications). Students typically (but not always) shadow departments in pairs. Some fields will be surgical but more often non-surgical. Some fields will be more engaging than others (and this varies from person to person), which is also what students will experience later on during their medical training.

Below is a sample rotation schedule. Preferences for specialties are not guaranteed. However, the vast majority of Atlantis participants end up receiving all or most of their choices.

Sample Schedule A Sample Schedule B Sample Schedule C
Week 1 Cardiology General Surgery Orthopedics
Week 2 Thoracic Surgery Emergency General Surgery
Week 3 Ophthalmology Cardiology Nuclear Radiology
Week 4 Dermatology Pediatrics OB/GYN
Week 5 Anesthesiology Pathology Neurology
Week 6 Hematology Neurology Urology

Our team chooses program locations that are surrounded by the rich cultural offerings of Europe, while also ensuring the availability of a hospital setting, which is always our priority. We know many pre-health students are unable to study abroad due to course requirements. Atlantis allows students to combine the joys of travel abroad with the invaluable experience of shadowing, particularly 360 Shadowing, with its greater depth, breadth, quantity, and intercultural perspective, relative to most other clinical experiences available to U.S. pre-health students.

Three Alumni Speak About Their
Experience in the Hospital

Note on Language Skills

English levels vary within the hospital, but no knowledge of language is required for this to be a valuable experience. The vast majority of our alumni have not spoken the local language. We always encourage students to practice in the months leading up to their program, but this is not required.

Join a webinar to hear about Atlantis from an alumni

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 on the program: 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

  • 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

Our Programs Are For Students In Gap Years, Too

Every year, many students participate in Atlantis programs after they’ve graduated from college. They enroll in the same programs as everyone else, and most programs usually have several students that already graduated from college. The fact that our programs have students more or less evenly distributed from all college years and beyond creates an experience where no one feels out of place. We also have students enrolling during pre-college gap years, though that is less common than post-college.

Beyond Shadowing: Atlantis Also Runs Service-Research Projects

Unlike our shadowing programs, which are most of what we do and focus on observing healthcare professionals across multiple specialties, Atlantis Service-Research Projects are an opportunity to learn full-time from an Atlantis Project Leader, inside an elite healthcare organization, in a real project with members of management and administration, while performing a highly impactful service – a unique mix.

Students sitting around a table having a discussion.
Students coordinating their research with the Project Leader in a similarly-structured project (Europe).

Dates

Atlantis programs run for 1–9 weeks over college breaks. Already have a job, vacation, or another pre-health activity in place during an upcoming break? No problem. We offer plenty of start dates and program lengths (see our cities & programs page for those) to make sure we find the best fit for your schedule. Don’t see your ideal dates or locations on our site? Reach out to us and explain your situation.

Students making pesto in Italy
Atlantis students learning how to make pesto in Italy (Genoa, Italy).
Students sitting in a hospital ready for shadowing.
A group of Atlantis students sitting on a bench ready to start shadowing in a hospital (Thessaloniki, Greece).
Getting Started

Application Process

If you are a serious pre-health student, we’d love to help you jumpstart your future in healthcare. The first step is a short online application, followed by a video conversation with an Atlantis representative and often an Atlantis alum. Once accepted, our team will help you select a program that works for your schedule and location preferences. You can always apply now, or, if you’re not quite ready to apply, we can keep you updated as our programs open and close.

Atlantis students kayaking in Spain (Barcelona, 2019).
Atlantis students kayaking off the coast of Spain (Barcelona, Spain).