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Como City town center on Lake Como in Italy (an Atlantis site).
Como City town center on Lake Como in Italy (an Atlantis site).

Italy

Como

$6,999

Overview

The city of Como overlooks the southwest end of Lake Como and is situated on the border between Italy and Switzerland. Its location overlooking the lake with a backdrop of green ridge hills makes for stunning natural scenery. This historic town has a medieval castle, impressive Romanesque and Gothic-style cathederals, and an old town with cobbled streets and cozy squares. Como’s lakeside promenade is nearly 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) with stunning views of the lake and plenty of places to stop along the way.

Destination Information

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Local Time Now:

4:17am

Official Languages:

Italian

Almost all alumni have not spoken the local language.
Download Typical Weekly Schedule

The City

Como city is both historic and modern. The city is enclosed within medieval walls, including Porta Torre, a Romanesque style military gate built in 1192 to defend the main entrance of the city. The main square is Piazza Duomo, which is home to the Como Cathedral, an remarkable building that took nearly 300 years to build and combines Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles.

As you continue through the city, you’ll find Romanesque-style churches and other historic buildings, as well as restaurants, shops and pubs.

Como overlooks Lake Como, where you can walk along a lakeside promenade to get a full view of the lake and your surroundings. You’ll see lakeside gardens, memorials and monuments along the way. Don’t miss a chance to see Como from above – visit Brunate and take a ride on the Como-Brunate funicular for a fantastic view of the city.

 

Dates & Availability

  • Summer Break 2024

Dates

Price

Availability

May 11, 2024 - May 31, 2024 3 weeks

$6,999

Open

June 1, 2024 - June 21, 2024 3 weeks

$6,999

Close to Full

June 22, 2024 - July 12, 2024 3 weeks

$6,999

Open

July 13, 2024 - August 2, 2024 3 weeks

$6,999

Open

You may pay over time, fundraise, consider scholarships, and more.

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

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

Hospital Overview

Sant’Anna Hospital

Built around the concept that the patient should be at the “center of the healthcare system,” the brand new Sant’Anna Hospital complex, in addition to a focus on cutting-edge technologies, places significant emphasis on the need for personalization, humanization, comfort, and safety in healthcare services.
 
The hospital commenced its operations in 2010 with approximately 650 beds, covering an area of about 60,000 square meters. The Sant’Anna Hospital has the main and most important high-care departments, including a surgical block with 19 operating rooms divided into two separate units and a maternity ward. 
Alumni Favorite

Lake Como Boat Trips

Admiring Lake Como and its gorgeous scenery is easiest from a boat. You can go to and from different towns on Lake Como by ferry or public boat service (the closest towns, like Cernobbio are just 15-minutes away, while other well-known towns like Bellagio are 1+ hours by boat), or you can choose to take scenic tours to take in your surroundings and slow down.

A ferry on Lake Como arriving in Bellagio, a one hour ferry ride from Como City (an Atlantis site).
A ferry on Lake Como arriving in Bellagio, a one hour ferry ride from Como City (an Atlantis site).

I absolutely loved my experience. My site managers did an amazing job giving us a real authentic Italian experience and were also very helpful with any questions we had. My group overall was fantastic, and it really made the trip that much better. I am so happy to have been able to see a different kind of healthcare system and use what I’ve learned in the hospital in my future career in medicine.

Hannah

Pavia Atlantis '19

Savannah State University

Alumni Outcomes
Atlantis students walking through the hallway of the hospital where they are shadowing (Genoa, Italy).
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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 enjoyment of exploring a new place with others who share your interests in travel and medicine. Excursions range from historical tours to culinary and cultural explorations.

Your Site Manager will inform you of the excursions they have planned during your program orientation. If you make travel plans outside of your city for a weekend and it conflicts with the events your Site Manager has planned, notify your Site Manager several days in advance so that they can plan accordingly.

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

Language Skills Not Required

Most participants do not speak the local language at their Atlantis program. English levels vary within the hospital, but no knowledge of the language is required for Atlantis to be valuable. There is enough English spoken in the hospital for participants to benefit from the programs, as you can read in our testimonials. 

Many patients in your future career will not speak your language and will come from a different cultural background, so the Atlantis experience prepares you for that intercultural perspective. Any slight language barrier you may encounter at Atlantis also helps you develop “resilience and adaptability,” an AAMC core competency.

Alumni Outcomes

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).

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).

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