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A panoramic view of the city of Mantua, Italy (an Atlantis site).
A panoramic view of the city of Mantua, Italy (an Atlantis site).

Italy

Mantua

$5,999

Overview

Mantua is situated in the Lombardy region and is considered one of the main artistic and cultural hubs in Northern Italy. Mantua is known as La Bella Addormentata, a sleeping beauty that hasn’t changed since the Middle Ages.

Surrounded by three artificial lakes created in the twelfth century, Mantua is a city still full of Renaissance splendor where visitors can enjoy the tranquility of the lakes or take a walk or bike ride along the banks of the River Mincio. The city is full of Italian art and architecture, including within the monumental Palazzo Ducale and its 500 rooms, seven gardens and eight courtyards.

Destination Information

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Local Time Now:

6:18am

Official Languages:

Italian

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

The City

The city owes a lot of its prestige to the wealthy and powerful Gonzaga family (yes, the American University is named after one of them), who ruled the city for nearly four centuries.

Food, art, nature, and a welcoming atmosphere are reasons why the greatest Italian Renaissance poet, Torquato Tasso, wrote that Mantua is “a very beautiful city, and one well worth traveling a thousand miles to see.”

Dates & Availability

  • Summer Break 2025

Dates

Price

Availability

May 10, 2025 - May 30, 2025 3 weeks

$5,999

Open

June 28, 2025 - July 18, 2025 3 weeks

$5,999

Close to Full

July 19, 2025 - August 8, 2025 3 weeks

$5,999

Open

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.

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

The ASST di Mantova (‘ASST’ stands for ‘Azienda Socio Sanitaria Territoriale’) sits just north of Mantua’s city center, not far from the train station. The hospital serves a rural province of about 415,000 inhabitants. ASST di Mantova is a public, non-university hospital with high-level specialties, offering both inpatient and outpatient services.

Alumni Favorite

Specialty Dishes

Food in this city is just poetry. In a street called Via Pescheria, along Rio Canal, there is a kiosk where people can taste the “cannoncino,” a local specialty wafer with whipped cream and pudding. There are also some great restaurants that offer an excellent “stracotto” (donkey stew) or the typical “bevrinvin,” which is agnolini (similar to tortellini) in soup with red wine.

Students enjoying food at a restaurant.
Atlantis students enjoying food at a restaurant (Mantua, Italy).

Atlantis allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and immerse myself in a culture that I would probably have never done if it wasn’t for this program. I learned so much about a different healthcare system and was able to confirm that medicine is what I want to do in the future. The program is a perfect mix of being able to explore a foreign country while also helping you to achieve your future goal of being a doctor.

Erin

Mantua Atlantis '19

University of Notre Dame

Alumni Outcomes
Students smiling by the ocean.
Atlantis students on an excursion during their shadowing program (Mantua, 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