How would you have known about this if you were not abroad LizzyM? I wonder because I would just like to give my 2 cents: that while a completely agree that going abroad to do a mission is for the volunteer more much more than the community, the volunteer can then catapult that knowledge for something much greater. For example, what if the man told you that there was recently a large cholera outbreak in the surrounding region where there were 4 large refugee camps. This knowledge could then be used to create connections between people from across the world to create a monetary fund of some kind. How would you have known about the need? TV commercials and brochures only do so much.....
on that note, i have always thought that the admissions process is a learning experience in itself. For example, Adcoms want people who have volunteered, have clinical experience, and do research. I think alot of people assume that these are things that the students should inherently be interested in and if they are not then they are simply hoops to jump through. I would completely disagree, and say that they are experiences that adcoms believe can teach the student about empathy(volunteer), the US healthcare system (Clinical experience), and the scientific process (research).
now, lets assume i am correct in that logic. what happens then if a person goes abroad to volunteer in a clinical setting rather than in the united states? i believe the lessons in empathy becomes magnified, since there is so much more of an emotional impact when going through culture shock. Understanding one's role as a service provider to those seeking it becomes a much stronger lesson to the volunteer abroad student than the guy who drives down to the local shelter. Should it be the case that abroad experiences have more of an impact? absolutely not! Poverty is poverty no matter where it is. Is it the case? of course! We're human beings!
Thus, i wonder whats wrong with viewing global volunteer missions as "clinical experiences that provide a much stronger emotional impact to derive lessons from" rather than "this man/woman probably thinks theyre ghandi. They must be semidelusional."
Also, i wonder sometimes about the need to destroy the desire of pre-meds to save the world. Of course its not realistic and thus thinking provides little for the world because real life planning is lost...but heres something to think about (http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/News/Meditation_Alters_Brain_WSJ_11-04.htm)
"In a striking difference between novices and monks, the latter showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves during compassion meditation. Thought to be the signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung brain circuits, gamma waves underlie higher mental activity such as consciousness. The novice meditators "showed a slight increase in gamma activity, but most monks showed extremely large increases of a sort that has never been reported before in the neuroscience literature," says Prof. Davidson, suggesting that mental training can bring the brain to a greater level of consciousness.
Using the brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists pinpointed regions that were active during compassion meditation. In almost every case, the enhanced activity was greater in the monks' brains than the novices'. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the seat of positive emotions such as happiness) swamped activity in the right prefrontal (site of negative emotions and anxiety), something never before seen from purely mental activity. A sprawling circuit that switches on at the sight of suffering also showed greater activity in the monks. So did regions responsible for planned movement, as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress.
"It feels like a total readiness to act, to help," recalled Mr. Ricard.
The study will be published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We can't rule out the possibility that there was a pre-existing difference in brain function between monks and novices," says Prof. Davidson, "but the fact that monks with the most hours of meditation showed the greatest brain changes gives us confidence that the changes are actually produced by mental training."
That opens up the tantalizing possibility that the brain, like the rest of the body, can be altered intentionally. Just as aerobics sculpt the muscles, so mental training sculpts the gray matter in ways scientists are only beginning to fathom."
I believe wanting to change the world is the first step to doing so. The next is then trying to complete those intentions. 100,000 people will fail. One might succeed....AND THATS ALL YOU NEED TO JUSTIFY THE FAILURE OF 100,000 PEOPLE!!!! life will do plenty to destroy people's dreams of making a profound impact. Adcoms should not be a source of that, but a cultivator. Its a responsibility of those older and more experienced to define reality for those younger and less experienced than themselves. I believe that not doing so is just irresponsible.
Lets take a hypothetical situation...How would you feel if a mentor consistently told a child how horrible the world was, how he or she should just give up on life, how people just die anyways. Is the world horrible? in alot of ways, it is. Does everybody die? yes! But these are realities are ignored to create effective human beings. This is probably a situation that falls into that catagory. Let the pre-meds dream of changing the world. One might actually succeed.
