Hi all,
I'm a current 3rd year med student with a situation: my school offers a 4th year global health elective in Uganda that's 6 weeks long from mid January to February 2018. I'm interested in going for many reasons: chance to learn and see how healthcare is practiced in a resource-poor area, chances to work with the population and provide care, improve my physical diagnosis skills given the lack of resources and much more. Also, my girlfriend will be going there, she will be a 3rd year resident by then. I'll admit that we're excited talking about it, since we'll get to work together in an environment where we get to provide care to the under-privileged.
Some worrisome things though are the fact that med students have to pay up for tuition, food, and air fare expenses (did some calculations and everything totals up to $8,000 , which I don't currently have), and the fact that this may interfere with residency interviews (haven't decided on what specialty yet).
Another wrench to throw into the equation is that: the deadline for submitting an application for med students is 12/31/16. My girlfriend has confirmed she is going, since she had to apply intern year for this elective before she met me (she's currently a 2nd year resident and she is fully reimbursed for everything from her salary, living expenses, and airfare, which I think is really unfair to the med students and talked with the director, there are no scholarships or grants available to med students so we really do have to foot the entirety of the bill). Also I will have to use the 2 week vacation I have at the end of 4th year to do a 2 week course in Uganda training.
Given all this, do you think it's worth it that I go? I really do want to since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity as a med student that I won't get to do otherwise, but at the same time there are a lot of variables to consider: financial costs, opportunity costs for residency interviews, and etc.
So what do y'all honestly think? Yay or nay?
I'm a current 3rd year med student with a situation: my school offers a 4th year global health elective in Uganda that's 6 weeks long from mid January to February 2018. I'm interested in going for many reasons: chance to learn and see how healthcare is practiced in a resource-poor area, chances to work with the population and provide care, improve my physical diagnosis skills given the lack of resources and much more. Also, my girlfriend will be going there, she will be a 3rd year resident by then. I'll admit that we're excited talking about it, since we'll get to work together in an environment where we get to provide care to the under-privileged.
Some worrisome things though are the fact that med students have to pay up for tuition, food, and air fare expenses (did some calculations and everything totals up to $8,000 , which I don't currently have), and the fact that this may interfere with residency interviews (haven't decided on what specialty yet).
Another wrench to throw into the equation is that: the deadline for submitting an application for med students is 12/31/16. My girlfriend has confirmed she is going, since she had to apply intern year for this elective before she met me (she's currently a 2nd year resident and she is fully reimbursed for everything from her salary, living expenses, and airfare, which I think is really unfair to the med students and talked with the director, there are no scholarships or grants available to med students so we really do have to foot the entirety of the bill). Also I will have to use the 2 week vacation I have at the end of 4th year to do a 2 week course in Uganda training.
Given all this, do you think it's worth it that I go? I really do want to since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity as a med student that I won't get to do otherwise, but at the same time there are a lot of variables to consider: financial costs, opportunity costs for residency interviews, and etc.
So what do y'all honestly think? Yay or nay?
