Good Mission Experience?

[AttemptingScholar]

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So I know SDN dislikes international medical missions, but I'm feeling like the common reasons don't apply to my situation and I'm interested what this community thinks.

We worked under local doctors doing grunt work--basic physical examinations, explaining health and sanitation, and a lot of record keeping. No invasive procedures or tooth pullings that would be illegal in the States, so I wasn't trying to get around the rules.

We supported doctors from in the country as they traveled from a city to a small rural community that normally doesn't have an active health center. We weren't usurping their jobs, without the manpower of the volunteers that health center just wouldn't have been open and that community just wouldn't have had care.

We also did manual labor--some time digging trenches for a clean water (though not a lot).

My application will (once I'm eventually applying) show a lot of community service in the States, and the group required more to be allowed to go on the trip. For me, the question was less "do I want to volunteer in my community or some other community" and more "given that I want to travel, practice a language I'm learning, and learn about other cultures, while I'm there do I want to volunteer or not?"

I can't imagine volunteering abroad is actually a bad thing, just that's it's often done for transparently bad reasons and had unintended consequences. I felt like I avoided the common problems with "voluntourism." Does SDN still hate it?

 

[topsoil municipio]

this is much less bad
define "physical examination" and how supervised were you?

 

[AttemptingScholar]

this is much less bad
define "physical examination" and how supervised were you?

Height, weight, pulse, respiration rate, blood pressure, current issues, family history (in Spanish!).

Always supervised, usually by an (in-country) physician. But we did it ourselves, they were busy and usually just making sure we weren't screwing up big-time.