doctors without borders

[Ypo.]

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Throwing money at a problem does not equal a solution.

 

[drfunktacular]

OMG, we have a poster with common sense, a rarity in SDN!

Ha!

 

[8744]

Wow, I haven't met many people who didn't want to travel outside the U.S., I have been to multiple countries outside the U.S. and enjoyed each of them including the developing ones. Returning to the U.S. is always culture shock in reverse, you see how commercialized everything is in the U.S. and how the pace of life is different in the U.S. As for Number 2, most people probably wouldn't contribute the money earned during staying at home, and also they are short doctors abroad there is no doctor to pay to go to some underserved area . . .

Dude. I have been all over the world and with the exception of the flies and starving people in the third world, it's just more of the same old thing wherever you go...that is, pretentious tourists pretending to be edified by what are usually backwards cultures.

Screw it. They're just places. People are remarkably the same everywhere.

 

[8744]

Ha!

Yeah. I can see it now: "Hey Honey, we've lived like paupers and sacrificed every asset and scrap of financial security we ever had on this crusade and now that I'm done and finally going to make a paycheck so we don't have to worry about going out to eat every now an then I've decided to run off to Lower Eulopotamia to work fer' nothing bringing low-level urgent care to the peasants."

Oh yeah.

 

[Tired]

Dude. I have been all over the world and with the exception of the flies and starving people in the third world, it's just more of the same old thing wherever you go...that is, pretentious tourists pretending to be edified by what are usually backwards cultures.

We're so ready to apply "quality of life" arguments to the elderly or chronically ill, why not apply it to people who live in crappy cultures?

 

[RxnMan]

OMG, we have a poster with common sense, a rarity!

Fixed it for you.

...Screw it. They're just places. People are remarkably the same everywhere.

I'd like to see the Parthenon, and Paris, and all that, but that's on a vacation. If I wanted to help the unwashed masses, I'd go out my front door, go 2 miles down the street, and help the destitute in my town. Why pay $$$ and take a 12-hour plane ride when you do the same thing and be home in time for dinner?

Yeah. I can see it now: "Hey Honey, we've lived like paupers and sacrificed every asset and scrap of financial security we ever had on this crusade and now that I'm done and finally going to make a paycheck so we don't have to worry about going out to eat every now an then I've decided to run off to Lower Eulopotamia to work fer' nothing bringing low-level urgent care to the peasants."

Oh yeah.

I believe lawyers refer to this type of reasoning as "grounds for divorce."

 

[Bananas Foster]

Dude. I have been all over the world and with the exception of the flies and starving people in the third world, it's just more of the same old thing wherever you go...that is, pretentious tourists pretending to be edified by what are usually backwards cultures.

Screw it. They're just places. People are remarkably the same everywhere.

dude, I'm not one to swear to cultural relativism,and I know you, panda, would be a lost cause anyways, but i think any talk of backwards cultures is pretty short sighted.

but yeah, i second most of your sentiment. Spending a year in east asia finishing my BA i found that people are pretty much just a racist, arrogant, short sighted whatever have you over in India or China as they are here in the good US of A. And given the chance, they would probably be just as fat and lazy as we are too.

 

[8744]

dude, I'm not one to swear to cultural relativism,and I know you, panda, would be a lost cause anyways, but i think any talk of backwards cultures is pretty short sighted.

but yeah, i second most of your sentiment. Spending a year in east asia finishing my BA i found that people are pretty much just a racist, arrogant, short sighted whatever have you over in India or China as they are here in the good US of A. And given the chance, they would probably be just as fat and lazy as we are too.

Well, that's the thing. On the whole, Americans are better people by any criteria you care to name than other people in the world. And I don't know who you hang out with but Americans are not lazy, not in the slightest, and most of us work pretty hard. If you want to talk about lazy you need to turn your sights on our European cousins in the Great Freeloader Kingdoms. Those folks have enshrined laziness and made it into a human right.

I bet you're voting for Mr. Obama as you seem to share his opinion of most Americans.

 

[Substance]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4445060.stm

This will do more to end sickness in poor nations than MSF ever could.

 

[Bananas Foster]

Well, that's the thing. On the whole, Americans are better people by any criteria you care to name than other people in the world. And I don't know who you hang out with but Americans are not lazy, not in the slightest, and most of us work pretty hard. If you want to talk about lazy you need to turn your sights on our European cousins in the Great Freeloader Kingdoms. Those folks have enshrined laziness and made it into a human right.

I bet you're voting for Mr. Obama as you seem to share his opinion of most Americans.

That's some good bait, but you're fishing in the wrong pond.

Usually I hear people laud other countries along the lines of "I wish America wasn't so racist, and could be more like (apocryphal enlightened european nation)." or most often I hear from conservatives here in Chicago "We're loosing jobs overseas because those Chinese are hard workers, not like the lazy and spoiled unions infesting America." I think these sentiments are a load of hogwash cause in my interaction with other cultures they're usually just as good and bad as we are. But so many people look abroad for enlightenment none the less....


Oh, and the lazy people I hang out with is me, I'm lazy as all hell. I'm pissed off I'm helping the GF move this weekend and am really wishing there was some awesome way to weasel out of it.... wait a second... care to come over and prove you hard work ethic by schlepping some dressers down some stairs?

 

[Doodledog]

I was still hoping that people would post some of their direct experiences about international volunteering. I've heard a lot of bashing of people who want to do international work and of MSF, but how I can't tell how much of this is just uninformed opinion as opposed to actual experience?

If there is interest, I could create a thread in the mentor forum specifically for the purpose of having people describe their international experiences and specific questions about these experiences. It would not have the discussion aspect of this thread 🙄, but would offer a place to combine such descriptions.

If anyone is interested, please PM me about it so this thread can return to the current discussion.

Edit: Done based on 2 requests...

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=515277

 

[drfunktacular]

I'd like to see the Parthenon, and Paris, and all that, but that's on a vacation. If I wanted to help the unwashed masses, I'd go out my front door, go 2 miles down the street, and help the destitute in my town. Why pay $$$ and take a 12-hour plane ride when you do the same thing and be home in time for dinner?

For some reason this discussion brings this to mind: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/

At any rate, this is one of the things I never get about third-world volunteerism. We have many people right here in America, probably in your town, possibly in your neighborhood, who live at living standards, and certainly health standards, not very far above the people you would be seeing in a clinic in Latin America or wherever. America certainly has the richest people in the world. But it isn't Europe--in Europe the bottom of society is much higher than the bottom in America, thanks in part to socialized healthcare, better state support systems, and governments that generally care about their citizens. Sad to say, the people living at the bottom of American society are much closer to the third-world than they are to (e.g.) the hedge fund managers who made a $billion last year. But somehow working at the county free clinic isn't quite as glamorous as the jungle clinic in rural Nicaragua even though you would be seeing people with the same level of access to healthcare and consequently are going untreated for the same types of cellulitis, diabetes, kidney disease, etc.

 

[kirurg]

For some reason this discussion brings this to mind: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/

At any rate, this is one of the things I never get about third-world volunteerism. We have many people right here in America, probably in your town, possibly in your neighborhood, who live at living standards, and certainly health standards, not very far above the people you would be seeing in a clinic in Latin America or wherever. America certainly has the richest people in the world. But it isn't Europe--in Europe the bottom of society is much higher than the bottom in America, thanks in part to socialized healthcare, better state support systems, and governments that generally care about their citizens. Sad to say, the people living at the bottom of American society are much closer to the third-world than they are to (e.g.) the hedge fund managers who made a $billion last year. But somehow working at the county free clinic isn't quite as glamorous as the jungle clinic in rural Nicaragua even though you would be seeing people with the same level of access to healthcare and consequently are going untreated for the same types of cellulitis, diabetes, kidney disease, etc.

I have a few friends who live/have lived in Europe and they ALL complain about the people who don't work and abuse the "better support systems." Their system is not fair to those citizens who lose about 40-50% of their income to taxes only to live next door to people who do not work because they are lazy. Most European countries do, however, provide much better education than we do in the US. I think the reason for the poverty in this country is education (and maybe some laziness), and free clinics/food stamps are the wrong place to be shelling out $$.

As for going to rural Latin America to help out... I can see why people would rather volunteer over there and in their own backyards. I've spent a LOT of time in Central and South America (for fun) and had a chance to tour some "hospitals" and meet the poorest of the poor in those countries. I also had to work with the poor heroin-addicts, free-clinic patients, teen mothers with more children and abortions than I can imagine, and homeless adults/adolescents in my own city. I would MUCH rather volunteer in Guatemala. Why? The destitute in my city could increase their QOL with some hard work and initiative. The impoverished in the third world cannot.

Whenever I see a person in a wheelchair in the US, I feel horrible, almost guilty to be healthy. It's hard to imagine what it must be like to be wheelchair-bound. But imagine what it would be like to be crippled in Peru and drag yourself around by your hands and elbows because you cannot afford a wheel chair and your government will not give you the $$ to buy one. The governments should be forced to help out their own citizens, but until they do, I don't see anything wrong with going over there to make someone's life a little less difficult.