Any inexpensive medical missionary trip?

[fastfingers]

I've been searching the internet, but I haven't found something with the best match, so I was hoping SDN could help me here. I've always wanted to do a medical missionary trip to another country to help the very poor, but unfortunately, I've looked at sites and the expenses are all very expensive. I don't mind if I'm living in very impoverished conditions during my trip, I just want to be able to help in a medical way. I'm a current premed college student with an EMT certification. The timeframe I want to go is this August 2009.

Is there any opportunities that seem to fit my need? I want to pay a minimal amount, but also be able to provide medical help to the less fortunate.

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[bkz]

Why is it important that you travel outside the US to help poor people?

 

[fastfingers]

Well, my undergraduate college is already in a poor community so I do that during the year. I wanted to do something different during the summer.

 

[LizzyM]

There was a long thread about medical mission trips awhile back. It sounds like you don't need a clinical experience to round out your application.

You would do far more good for the poor of a poor country by being a tourist... buy their crafts, eat in their restaurants and food stands, sleep in their hotels (some are pretty modest places), take buses or taxis (some local guy has a job because he's taking you from here to there). Economic development depends on pumping cash into those local economies in exchange for goods and services. Your dollars mean that a taxi driver or food stand operator can buy a bottle of aspirin rather than skipping work and standing in line at a free clinic for you to hand them a free bottle of aspirin.

 

[fastfingers]

true, but it's just something I've always just wanted to experience