Summer Medical Institute (SMI)

The Summer Medical Institute (SMI) Philadelphia is a three-week health outreach program sponsored by the Medical Campus Outreach (MCO) ministry of Christian Community Health Fellowship and hosted by Esperanza Health Center. SMI Philadelphia will take place June 21-July 12, 2025

During SMI Philadelphia, a team of volunteer health professions students, together with local church members and volunteers, seek to address health and spiritual needs of the North Philadelphia community, while providing a way for students to learn to integrate their faith within their medical careers. After initial training sessions, students conduct neighborhood health outreach in teams throughout North Philadelphia communities of Kensington and Hunting Park, offering blood pressure and diabetes risk screenings, as well as nutrition and healthy lifestyle education. Through these encounters, they seek to share the love of Christ, the Great Physician, with individuals and families they meet.

Students live together in community during SMI Philadelphia. They learn first-hand the impact of social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, and economic factors on individuals’ health. Also, through interaction with clinicians and staff members at Esperanza Health Center, students have the opportunity to observe an effective model of Christian primary health care.

• For more information about SMI Philadelphia, please contact the SMI Director at smiphilly@gmail.com or please visit: mcophilly.org/smi-philadelphia. 

History of The Summer Medical Institute

The Summer Medical Institute originally started in North Philadelphia in 1992 as a partnership of Esperanza Health Center and Medical Campus Outreach. The focus of the initial SMI was to provide childhood immunizations in response to a measles outbreak that affected North Philadelphia’s Latino community. The program continued in Philadelphia for nearly 10 years before being relocated to an underserved area in Texas, near the border with Mexico.

With a renewed vision for an SMI outreach in Philadelphia, Esperanza and Medical Campus Outreach have again partnered to conduct the SMI Philadelphia during the summers of 2010 through the present. In addition to SMI Philadelphia, 13 other SMI-like programs have been started throughout the United States and around the world.