I agree with parts of your statements, but I feel the principals behind many short term trips is being lost in the generalization. These missions go beyond the personal investment of each individual.
I agree that short term trips without a long term plan can bring harm to the country being served. But, short term trips can be a part of a successful long term plan. Read the book “When Helping Hurts”
Amazon product ASIN 0802409989
In short, the book talks about educating and empowering the people. The short term trips need to provide access to education or services that are not available to the population. In the case of medicine it is more complicated than just educating them. It takes 12 years of training minimum post high school to become a physician in the United States. In this case an infrastructure needs to be established to educate high quality physicians in the local population. This takes years to estabolish and there must be physicians to provide continuous care until the local physicians have been educated. Sure, many of these countries have doctors, but you will find a majority of them have less training than MA’s in the US. Ethically these doctors need to be trained more to practice and a higher standard need to be set for them. Even if they could be trusted to provide the same quality of care as a developed country there are rarely enough doctors to serve an entire population equally.
I am sure some countries are more advanced than this, but the same principles of empowering and educating the people can be applied to whatever infrastructure they have. The end goal should be a world that has equally qualified physicians in every country. Obviously this is near impossible to do, but this also shows the necessity for more physicians and medical professionals providing these trips.
This is where short term missions come into play. I concur, if there will be no support after a trip than the trip is almost useless. Alternatively, there are teams going on short term trips through a structured mission throughout the year providing continuous care. These trips can be extremely successful. All of this with the groups working together toward educating and empowering the people provide for themselves in the future.
It does not matter that the students on the trip are ‘useless’ for medical practice. They are the future educators and empowers of the people. I have experienced the frustration of seeing horrific trauma and not being capable to help. But, other students and I trained for months before hand on vitals and learning the basic local language. While these are all small contributions they make a difference. If we had doctors directing people around a clinic, keeping the crowds organized and educating them on how to make clean drinking water they would see fewer patients. Just like any good business a member of the team that is highly qualified should not be doing a task someone less qualified can do just as effectively.
It is true students can feel just as frustrated seeing trauma in an ER in the US, but that motivates students in the field of medicine. It is not until the student experiences this feeling on the mission field that they feel the same draw to medicine in the mission field.
It is also true you could higher locals to do the same job as the students. Think of this as a business thinks of advertising. Good networking and advertising is essential to making a business successful. Think about the network of physicians in the medical field as the business. Then think about all the innocent, or not so innocent at times, pre-med students that tag along as the target audience for advertising. These students are the investment of the business. These trips can expose students to unique experiences that only the mission field can give. These experiences can help clarify the principles of ‘When Helping Hurts.” While there is need for physicians in underprivileged communities of the US the need is not the same as a 3rd world country. Not all students will apply these principals through their career as a physician. But, if no investment is made to recruit the future physicians, at the pre-med stage, there will not be as many physicians educating and empowering underprivileged countries in the future.
Sorry for the long post. I could go on for days about this. If you can’t tell I am the pre-med student that had their life changed during a ‘useless’ short term trip. I have been and will continue to network and raise awareness in the US and I hope to teach at a medical school in a 3rd world country someday. I would not have these goals without my experiences overseas. So while many ADCOMS see the students that are just padding their application, it should be pretty easy to weed them out through a couple interview questions.
Personally I am disappointed I read this thread after I submitted my application. I figured my motives and visions for these trips would be a given. I talked mostly about my personal experiences during my trips in my description. Hopefully I get the chance to clarify my thoughts during an interview!
