Why is volunteering abroad looked at so unfavorably?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Oh come on. That title was completely meant to be a jab at white people in particular, even though it was ONE missionary that thought she was literally Jesus. The podcast is specifically about her, not "voluntourism" in general.

Would you rather people with privilege not help the underprivileged at all? I'm perfectly fine with that. I would much rather be paid or do something else entirely.
I’ve always wondered what percentage of med school applicants would actually volunteer if It wasn’t a requirement.

Members don't see this ad.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Oh come on. That title was completely meant to be a jab at white people in particular.

Would you rather people with privilege not help the underprivileged at all? I'm perfectly fine with that. I would much rather be paid or do something else entirely.

Um no, the entire thing is a conversation between two former missionaries and their Ugandan friends about the white savior complex, missions, and how this damages society. They didn’t come up with the White Savior complex, they just discuss it. But okay.

There is a right way and a wrong way to offer your assistance. Your statement is making the assumption that many others have made in this thread as well: that the “help” most people provide is actually effective and that simply isn’t true. If you’re going to help those less privileged, then do it responsibly. If you aren’t willing to put in the work these people deserve, then yeah, you and your privilege should stay at home.
 
Last edited:
I’ve always wondered what percentage of med school applicants would actually volunteer if It wasn’t a requirement.

A lot of my friends I consider to be nicer and more generous people don't volunteer (at least with what's considered underserved) at all. They're going into business/finance or engineering.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
It’s not voluntary if they are a vulnerable population and you tell them it’s your way or the highway. This is exactly why you can’t get IRB approval for offering certain incentives when working with some disadvantaged groups of people:beat:
Still voluntary
 
Still voluntary

Go ahead and try to get something like that through your IRB. Go ahead. Offer services/money in exchange for being research subjects to really poor people. Go ahead, see if that’s ethical. :corny:
 
If you aren’t willing to put in the work these people deserve, then yeah, you and your privilege should stay at home.

Beggars can't be choosers.

With that I'm back to MCAT cramming
 
  • Wow
  • Angry
Reactions: 1 users
Beggars can't be choosers.

And this is exactly the kind of attitude that harms people and is 100% unethical.

To quote Paul Farmer:
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

If you think offering mediocre and harmful services to people just because they are poor is okay, then you need to re-evaluate because you are the problem.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Go ahead and try to get something like that through your IRB. Go ahead. Offer services/money in exchange for being research subjects to really poor people. Go ahead, see if that’s ethical. :corny:
it’s not research to provide appropriate medical treatment
And this is exactly the kind of attitude that harms people and is 100% unethical.

To quote Paul Farmer:
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

If you think offering mediocre and harmful services to people just because they are poor is okay, then you need to re-evaluate.
Why are you strawmanning again? These trips are not necessarily mediocre/harmful. We’re talking appreciate standard of care
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
it’s not research to provide appropriate medical treatment

Why are you strawmanning again? These trips are not necessarily mediocre/harmful. We’re talking appreciate standard of care

But if you have to coerce people to care for them, then it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do. You can’t coerce your patients to provide medical treatment, not here and not abroad.

If most of these trips weren’t harmful, then this wouldn’t even be a topic of debate. He literally said beggars can’t be choosers. There is no place for that attitude in international aid and especially not in medicine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I think OP's question was answered a long time ago, and this thread isn't really productive anymore. We should bring this conversation to a close and maybe take it to PMs/a different thread.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
A lot of my friends I consider to be nicer and more generous people don't volunteer (at least with what's considered underserved) at all. They're going into business/finance or engineering.
Their generosity is showing through your description.
 
it’s not research to provide appropriate medical treatment

Why are you strawmanning again? These trips are not necessarily mediocre/harmful. We’re talking appreciate standard of care
Did you read past the “Beggars can’t be choosers” or did you just agree with the statement and chose to ignore It?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
And this is exactly the kind of attitude that harms people and is 100% unethical.

To quote Paul Farmer:
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

If you think offering mediocre and harmful services to people just because they are poor is okay, then you need to re-evaluate because you are the problem.

Never said some lives are worth more than others or that harmful care is acceptable.

But if you have to coerce people to care for them, then it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do. You can’t coerce your patients to provide medical treatment, not here and not abroad.

If most of these trips weren’t harmful, then this wouldn’t even be a topic of debate. He literally said beggars can’t be choosers. There is no place for that attitude in international aid and especially not in medicine.

I'm not coercing anyone? Don't take what I said out of context. You said:

If you aren’t willing to put in the work these people deserve, then yeah, you and your privilege should stay at home.

What exactly do they deserve? It was a response to your virtue signalling. I am not saying harmful care is okay. I'm saying that if their only choices were no care or some care, they should be happy with "some care." If not, I'm not going to force care onto them.
 
But if you have to coerce people to care for them, then it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do. You can’t coerce your patients to provide medical treatment, not here and not abroad.

If most of these trips weren’t harmful, then this wouldn’t even be a topic of debate. He literally said beggars can’t be choosers. There is no place for that attitude in international aid and especially not in medicine.
Payment is not coercion even if we accepted your premise that the only places who allow short term trips are those who have been paid (and I don’t necessarily)
 
Never said some lives are worth more than others or that harmful care is acceptable.



I'm not coercing anyone? Don't take what I said out of context. You said:



What exactly do they deserve? It was a response to your virtue signalling. I am not saying harmful care is okay. I'm saying that if their only choices were no care or some care, they should be happy with "some care." If not, I'm not going to force care onto them.

The coercion comment was not geared toward you, but to the other poster.

That is not the way your comment came off to me or to others.



I agree that this thread has out lived it’s purpose. We will obviously never reach a common ground on this, so there is no point in continuing.
 
I get ya. I just think 6 weeks is too short. For me, the commitment should be 4-6 months minimum (i.e. more than a summer abroad).
I spent only 4 weeks in Colombia as a phlebotomist, pulling security, and running Malarial screening tests at the border with Venezuela at the beginning of the refugee crisis...Sure, it wasn’t volunteer-based (My participation was voluntary, but I was still paid by the government...) and I can tell you that, in the right setting, at least, 4 weeks would be PLENTY of time to make a difference for both the local population and on the perspectives of the pre-med....

Unless it is strictly unskilled labor you are talking about, in which case NVM as I was skilled labor...
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I spent only 4 weeks in Colombia as a phlebotomist, pulling security, and running Malarial screening tests at the border with Venezuela at the beginning of the refugee crisis...Sure, it wasn’t volunteer-based (My participation was voluntary, but I was still paid by the government...) and I can tell you that, in the right setting, at least, 4 weeks would be PLENTY of time to make a difference for both the local population and on the perspectives of the pre-med....

Unless it is strictly unskilled labor you are talking about, in which case NVM as I was skilled labor...

The range I gave is based on my own experience.

The Peace Corps also has an adjustment curve graph (see below) that demonstrates that it is at about the 6 month mark when volunteers get over their initial enthusiasm and culture shock and are actually well adjusted enough to be effective. Their info is based on 50+ years and over 100,000 volunteer experiences, so I think that 4-6 months is a good time period considering most students who go abroad aren’t going to be moving to a new area after 3 months and they’ll have more consistency. If I remember correctly, Fulbright endorses a similar time frame.

At 4 weeks, you could still be honeymooning. Or you could be getting frustrated and annoyed. Neither would leave you with a very accurate impression of the place, the people, or the work you were doing. That’s why I think 4-6 months is more likely to offer a genuinely meaningful experience for both the student and the beneficiaries.
268759
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
The trouble is that
1) these trips are more about buffing up your CV, not about helping others
2) There are plenty of American who need help
3) People out and out lie about what they do. They may simply go to visit Nana/Abuela in the old country and then say hello to a local doctor,
4) People do medical procedures that would not be allowed here.
5) They take jobs away from the locals
6) We'd rather you understand what you're getting into Medicine-wise here in the US, because that's where you're going to practice, after all.
Well as someone who has spent more than half my life doing medical volunteering with the poor, I found what @Goro (and @gonnif ) said somewhat disconcerting. There are some of us who really do give a d@mn about providing services for the underserved and poor, both here in the U.S. and abroad. And we have the patients and results to prove it. In my case, I have spent half-time as a volunteer medical assistant and phlebotomist at a free clinic for the homeless (12 years), a mobile wound care clinic (4 years). Most recently, for the past 14 years, I have been with U.S.-nonprofit that runs free clinics in rural Mexico. To date, I have mad e more than one hundred medical missions to one of its rural facilities, which is in a town that has only a few doctors. At the clinic where I run the operating room, work with surgeons, anesthesiogists, and nurses on cases, make sure all equipment is working, do sterile process, handle follow-up, etc. Patients come from both local and from hundreds of miles away. This is not voluntourism. The town is small and apart from its downtown, there are no sights to see except miles of corn and beans. In fact, except for our initial arrival and we never have any time to leave the clinic as we put in 16-or-more-hour days. (The clinic has its own kitchen, dining room, dormitory, bathing facilities, water supply, etc.) Our presence does not take jobs away from locals because not enough locals are trained, but we train them. Furthermore, many Mexican healthcare workers do not want to work with the poor because they cannot pay. We actually have an easier time convincing U.S. doctors and nurses to fly 1000 miles into Mexico than to get local Mexican doctors to come 100 or even 50 miles away.

So, I would find it distressing for all of this work to be discounted because AdComms think that this work is trivial or unimportant. Just ask our patients.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Well as someone who has spent more than half my life doing medical volunteering with the poor, I found what @Goro (and @gonnif ) said somewhat disconcerting. There are some of us who really do give a d@mn about providing services for the underserved and poor, both here in the U.S. and abroad. And we have the patients and results to prove it. In my case, I have spent half-time as a volunteer medical assistant and phlebotomist at a free clinic for the homeless (12 years), a mobile wound care clinic (4 years). Most recently, for the past 14 years, I have been with U.S.-nonprofit that runs free clinics in rural Mexico. To date, I have mad e more than one hundred medical missions to one of its rural facilities, which is in a town that has only a few doctors. At the clinic where I run the operating room, work with surgeons, anesthesiogists, and nurses on cases, make sure all equipment is working, do sterile process, handle follow-up, etc. Patients come from both local and from hundreds of miles away. This is not voluntourism. The town is small and apart from its downtown, there are no sights to see except miles of corn and beans. In fact, except for our initial arrival and we never have any time to leave the clinic as we put in 16-or-more-hour days. (The clinic has its own kitchen, dining room, dormitory, bathing facilities, water supply, etc.) Our presence does not take jobs away from locals because not enough locals are trained, but we train them. Furthermore, many Mexican healthcare workers do not want to work with the poor because they cannot pay. We actually have an easier time convincing U.S. doctors and nurses to fly 1000 miles into Mexico than to get local Mexican doctors to come 100 or even 50 miles away.

So, I would find it distressing for all of this work to be discounted because AdComms think that this work is trivial or unimportant. Just ask our patients.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now.

You have worked with the same organization for years, have consistently returned to the same place hundreds of times, AND have been capacity building by teaching locals in the process. This isn’t what we are talking about. This is an example of the type of dedication we want to see in people who want to do global health work.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Lots of very strong view points here. Mine isn’t strong but I have been on an abroad medical mission trip so I’ll give my input. I went to a south/Central American country for 1.5 weeks. The organization is based in the community we worked in and they have a constant flow of volunteers year round that focuses on that particular region. I was able to attend this trip for a total of less than a grand, and as a freshman in college I wanted to see what life was like outside of the USA. I honestly don’t know how much of a difference I made, I mostly just help take vitals and take patients back to the doctors. I didn’t write about this on any of my essays or whatever, I just put it as an activity. This won’t be a centerpiece of my app, but it could be a nice talking point if it comes up in interviews. I also have ample community service here in the USA and don’t plan on making the medical trip a key piece in my app so I doubt adcoms would look down on my trip.
 
Well as someone who has spent more than half my life doing medical volunteering with the poor, I found what @Goro (and @gonnif ) said somewhat disconcerting. There are some of us who really do give a d@mn about providing services for the underserved and poor, both here in the U.S. and abroad. And we have the patients and results to prove it. In my case, I have spent half-time as a volunteer medical assistant and phlebotomist at a free clinic for the homeless (12 years), a mobile wound care clinic (4 years). Most recently, for the past 14 years, I have been with U.S.-nonprofit that runs free clinics in rural Mexico. To date, I have mad e more than one hundred medical missions to one of its rural facilities, which is in a town that has only a few doctors. At the clinic where I run the operating room, work with surgeons, anesthesiogists, and nurses on cases, make sure all equipment is working, do sterile process, handle follow-up, etc. Patients come from both local and from hundreds of miles away. This is not voluntourism. The town is small and apart from its downtown, there are no sights to see except miles of corn and beans. In fact, except for our initial arrival and we never have any time to leave the clinic as we put in 16-or-more-hour days. (The clinic has its own kitchen, dining room, dormitory, bathing facilities, water supply, etc.) Our presence does not take jobs away from locals because not enough locals are trained, but we train them. Furthermore, many Mexican healthcare workers do not want to work with the poor because they cannot pay. We actually have an easier time convincing U.S. doctors and nurses to fly 1000 miles into Mexico than to get local Mexican doctors to come 100 or even 50 miles away.

So, I would find it distressing for all of this work to be discounted because AdComms think that this work is trivial or unimportant. Just ask our patients.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now.
3 pages, and someone else is still not paying attention. We are not talking about dedicated and extended periods of time, but only those that are a week or so.
Capeesh?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I served in the Peace Corps and did a several month long volunteer assignment with language classes before my service, and I have other volunteer work abroad . . . I think you learn more about a country through volunteering in places that tourists don't normally go. Even with the Peace Corps, volunteers feel like you get more out of service than what you give back. I would seriously disagree that short volunteer stints exploit people and that being a regular tourists and eating in hotels and just traveling around is somehow better.



There are ways to be more careful with what company you use, mine employed a dozen locals and we stayed with a local host family, so, no, I don't feel like I exploited anybody.



I don't think that "voluntourism" is a clear-cut definition. By all accounts, college age students volunteer abroad more frequently than in decades past.



The medical establishment didn't want Albert Schweitzer going into the jungle to help people, and even post Schweitzer there are controversies. But yes, these people made longterm commitments, though also there are some healthcare facilities which have a lasting presence which cycle through doctors and nurses to keep them staffed year round.

I don't think that Paul Farmer would knock on people just getting started in global health who start by doing a couple months somewhere.

I’ve stated several times already that the standard should be for a few months and not just a week or two.

And as an RPCV, you know that you don’t truly understand anything about a place or a people after only one month. Hence why I suggested multiple months and time to actually learn and contribute.

Just because people have been doing something for decades doesn’t mean it is correct. Google voluntourism and you’ll found countless things about the ethics of it. The impression of this type of tourism is without a doubt becoming more negative.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I'm an RPCV and I tried hard to hit the ground running with my service, definitely accomplished more in the second year, but even during your first months in site you can make friends with host country nationals, work on small tasks together like health talks and community groups and encourage your nurses to make one more house visit even though everybody is tired. Some response volunteers really know how to small talk with locals and gain confidence and just a couple months in a site they can get projects going and help empower local communities.

However, the graph you show is anticipatory guidance for the ups and downs of Peace Corps service, not necessarily when you'll accomplish what and when. It is the perogative of every PCV to call NGOs and their short-term projects as not true development work, maybe so in some cases, but some NGOs rely upon a rotating staff.

Dear god, how many times have I said it: a few months should be the standard. You aren’t arguing what I have said. Your comments are supporting exactly what I said about why people should go for longer periods of time and not for a few weeks. :bang:

I believe Fulbright has a similar graph as PC. Adjusting to a new country isn’t unique to PCVs, which is why I feel the curve is an appropriate example of the timeframe it takes to actually adjust. Thus, my 4-6 month recommendation.
 
Last edited:
  • Love
Reactions: 1 user
Dear god, how many times have I said it: a few months should be the standard. You aren’t arguing what I have said. Your comments are supporting exactly what I said about why people should go for longer periods of time and not for a few weeks. :bang:

I believe Fulbright has a similar graph as PC. Adjusting to a new country isn’t unique to PCVs, which is why I feel the curve is an appropriate example of the timeframe it takes to actually adjust. Thus, my 4-6 month recommendation.
As you can imagine, there's a reason why there is a CARS section on the MCAT.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
My first global health volunteer experience was for around 3 months, that was enough for me to know that I wanted to do that sort of work in the future. Short term volunteer assignments can lead to a desire to do more and you learn a lot about a country even though not as much for years at a time.

There is a huge difference between you learning that in 3 months and others trying to learn it in a week. That timeframe is far closer to what I have suggested. So, again, you are not arguing against what I have said.

My entire point with that timeframe is that you need to be there long enough to learn and understand even the slightest bit about what is happening around you. No, you don’t need to know everything at a super in-depth level, but by being there longer, you’re more likely to learn/understand and you’re more likely to make a positive impact than if you just came in for a week or two. You are literally not saying anything different.
 
I’ve stated several times already that the standard should be for a few months and not just a week or two.

And as an RPCV, you know that you don’t truly understand anything about a place or a people after only one month. Hence why I suggested multiple months and time to actually learn and contribute.

Just because people have been doing something for decades doesn’t mean it is correct. Google voluntourism and you’ll found countless things about the ethics of it. The impression of this type of tourism is without a doubt becoming more negative.
It doesn’t take months of in depth cultural study to help take some vitals and assist around a clinic

I’m down with saying more is better but you have some rather arbitrary notions
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Even so . . . Peace Corps is a mix of kindergarten development school, a cultural exchange, language learning, and a modest amount of development work, the big impactors are USAID and a plethora of NGOs, in no way are there studies showing neither that Peace Corps is super effective, nor are there studies showing that Peace Corps studied 100,000 volunteers for the cycle of adjustment (which is just given to volunteers during PST to make you feel better about the emotional challenges of service) and in no way is other international volunteer work supposed to be judged against Peace Corps service.

I understand this completely. I worked for several years in development before med school and I grew up with parents who also worked in aid (one was a CD for long time). They didn’t just make up that graph. It’s based on patterns and decades of observation. And because many students are young twenty-somethings like most PCVs, it makes sense that they would follow similar trends in adjustment to a new country. It’s not judging against Peace Corps at all.
 
It doesn’t take months of in depth cultural study to help take some vitals and assist around a clinic

I’m down with saying more is better but you have some rather arbitrary notions

Again, as I’ve said 1000 times, it takes time to understand the place and people around you, to develop relationships, and to be effective in your work. Which is exactly what Mezkanata has said: “'m an RPCV and I tried hard to hit the ground running with my service, definitely accomplished more in the second year, but even during your first months in site you can make friends with host country nationals, work on small tasks together like health talks and community groups and encourage your nurses to make one more house visit even though everybody is tired. Some response volunteers really know how to small talk with locals and gain confidence and just a couple months in a site they can get projects going and help empower local communities.”
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Again, as I’ve said 1000 times, it takes time to understand the place and people around you, to develop relationships, and to be effective in your work. Which is exactly what Mezkanata has said: “'m an RPCV and I tried hard to hit the ground running with my service, definitely accomplished more in the second year, but even during your first months in site you can make friends with host country nationals, work on small tasks together like health talks and community groups and encourage your nurses to make one more house visit even though everybody is tired. Some response volunteers really know how to small talk with locals and gain confidence and just a couple months in a site they can get projects going and help empower local communities.”


READ. COMPREHEND.
I find your whole perception of what is necessary to be unrealistic...it’s like you don’t actually do health care. You really don’t need a ton of cultural background and language skills to do a lot of tasks if you have a translator

You may accomplish more with those things but it’s not at all requisite to being useful.

We’re just gonna disagree on this
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Actually I have already Googled a lot on volunteering abroad in health care for many decades, and there are RPCVs who work towards creating voluntourism experiences more responsive to local needs. Here an article I found just now: 5 myths about voluntourism talks about both the negative and positions aspects. I still think that it is very a la mode of fashion right now to slam voluntourism in certain situations, a lot of this sort of work is done by retired people who want a more active vacation that might have a better impact than just going sight-seeing and it lets you work with locals.

People might as well slam volunteer work in the US:

1. Don't be a volunteer paramedic (even though rural areas are hurting for them) you're taking jobs away from people!
2. Don't volunteer to read to kids at schools, you'll take a job from teachers and it is just 2 hours a week and you won't have a sustainable impact!
3. Don't be a volunteer nurse with hospice, you'll take somebody's job!
4. Don't be a volunteer physician or work for lower rates at a community HIV center, your work isn't sustainable without addressing the structural inequities first! Please spend your time on the weekends on the golf links as your part of the problem!

Please.

I'll finished my life with maybe 4-6 years of health care work in developing countries, much less than what I wanted. I've seen the work of Harvard trained physicians who speak the local language and travel between the Harvard hospitals and the developing world, following in the model of Paul Farmer. Everybody had to start somewhere, he probably spend just a short amount of time in Haiti and I'm glad nobody piled on him after he got off the plane.

I think this sort of work should be facilitated, be it 3 months or two years or more.

You’re beginning to regurgitate a lot of the stuff we already discussed. So, if you want to see the debates on that, go back and READ.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I find your whole perception of what is necessary to be unrealistic...it’s like you don’t actually do health care. You really don’t need a ton of cultural background and language skills to do a lot of tasks if you have a translator

You may accomplish more with those things but it’s not at all requisite to being useful.

We’re just gonna disagree on this

I would refer you to any article about the importance of social determinants of health and as well cultural sensitivity in healthcare. These are recognized as vital aspects of quality medical care here in the US and there is no reason there should be an exception abroad

But, yes, we can agree that we are going to disagree and this thread has fulfilled it’s purpose.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I would refer you to any article about the importance of social determinants of health and as well cultural sensitivity in healthcare. These are recognized as vital aspects of quality medical care here in the US and there is no reason there should be an exception abroad

But, yes, we can agree that we are going to disagree and this thread has fulfilled it’s purpose.
Nope, never implied that the thread should be closed.

I just stated that months of all the sociology stuff isn’t required to do basic care and acknowledged that you disagree
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
The graph is about psychological adjustment . . . not every volunteer follows this graph, I sure didn't. Some thought they did, some didn't. I can see that if your parent was a CD, there is a Peace Corps centric approach to development.

Development is different from short-term medical missions for doctors and nurses, like what MSF does. Holding premeds to development standards, especially when it is expensive to do Peace Corps in terms of lost wages and stuff, might not make the best of sense, at the very least I don't think that short-term international volunteer assignments should be looked upon negatively, probably neutral if it was for a couple weeks, maybe if you do it for a month or longer the question is how the experience impacted you in terms of your goals in medicine.

In the time frame of the coming decades, there will probably always be need for short-term medical workers, such as surgeons and anesthesiologists to work in disaster/conflict areas where quite simply it would be impossible to suddenly produce dozens of extra surgeons, or internists and ob/gyns in the case of Ebola outbreaks. Not the same thing as development, but also needed.

I understand that completely. You do understand that it is based on average, right? And therefore it is still valid to assume that the average student would have the same adjustment.

This has already been discussed in this thread and elsewhere. Organizations like MSF are not what premed students are doing for their international experiences. No one can or would argue against the validity of these organizations. Go back and read the other pages and understand the debate because you’re not adding anything new.


Nope, never implied that the thread should be closed.

I just stated that months of all the sociology stuff isn’t required to do basic care and acknowledged that you disagree

Of course, the sociology stuff is unimportant. That is why it is on the MCAT and every step exam has ethical questions about understanding patients in order to provide proper care. Gotcha.

I do think the thread should be closed. There is no purpose in it anymore.
 
Even Paul Farmer said that you'll never be fully culturally competent, he said he's worked in Haiti for decades and there are still some cultural things he doesn't understand, same thing with people who have worked for the Peace Corps for decades, there are still things they don't understand about the culture. Farmer basically said, "we need doctors and nurses" in the field. Here is an interesting fact:

"The 47 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have a critical shortage of healthcare workers, the deficit amounting to 2.4 million doctors and nurses. There are 2 doctors and 11 nursing/midwifery personnel per 10,000 population, compared with 19 doctors and 49 nursing/midwifery personnel per 10,000 for the Americas, and 32 doctors and 78 nursing/midwifery personnel per 10,000 for Europe."

How exactly does telling pre-med students that getting your feet wet and doing a couple weeks or months abroad in a developing country is a bad thing?

Go back and read the thread! No one is saying you shouldn’t go abroad! There are responsible and irresponsible ways of doing it and that needs to be considered. Also, no one said you needed to fully understand everything. You do need to at least have a clue though if you want to be successful.

This is literally the biggest waste of time because you clearly have not read or understood what had been discuss up to this point.

I will no longer be contributing to this useless discussion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Of course, the sociology stuff is unimportant. That is why it is on the MCAT and every step exam has ethical questions about understanding patients in order to provide proper care. Gotcha.

I do think the thread should be closed. There is no purpose in it anymore.

Your metric of whether a topic is useful or not is if a standardized test covers it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Your metric of whether a topic is useful or not is if a standardized test covers it?

Don’t you have an MCAT to study for. I suggest the psych/soc section. And maybe CARS.

I’m out of this thread.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I have no idea what’s going on this thread now but here’s my take. If you want to truly help people internationally then do it. It theoretically shouldn’t matter to you what SDN thinks or medical schools if that’s your purpose. Don’t let others dictate you, your experiences are what you make of them. That being said, I decided to work in one of the worst murder ridden cities in the US because I truly wanted to make a difference here in the US with that specific population. I loved it and it transformed me.
 
I understand that completely. You do understand that it is based on average, right? And therefore it is still valid to assume that the average student would have the same adjustment.

This has already been discussed in this thread and elsewhere. Organizations like MSF are not what premed students are doing for their international experiences. No one can or would argue against the validity of these organizations. Go back and read the other pages and understand the debate because you’re not adding anything new.




Of course, the sociology stuff is unimportant. That is why it is on the MCAT and every step exam has ethical questions about understanding patients in order to provide proper care. Gotcha.

I do think the thread should be closed. There is no purpose in it anymore.
Calculating electrical capacitors was also on the mcat, you need a better metric of what is actually important in life
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
3 pages, and someone else is still not paying attention. We are not talking about dedicated and extended periods of time, but only those that are a week or so.
Capeesh?
Goro, yes, I understand. I just read things too fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
This thread has gotten ridiculous. I don't think anyone here is arguing that longer trips as a whole don't provide more benefit to the locals, that there aren't significant problems with many of these trips (especially short-term ones), or that the volunteer won't benefit significantly from these trips, oftentimes more than the locals.

My point of contention was and is that these trips, even short-term ones, CANNOT provide lasting benefits to those being served in situations that they would otherwise receive no aid at all. Are most programs ideal? Of course not, and many, probably most, are as the people who are against these trips here claim. However, there are some short term trips which are not the same. I would be curious to know how many individuals arguing against these trips have actually participated in any of the. Additionally, many of the problems with the short-term exist with volunteering programs at home as well.

My question to the adcoms like @Goro and @TMC07 is that when applicants have these experiences on their app, if you ask about them are you asking about what they got out of the experience or about what they thought the impacts of those experiences were? Both? Do you do the same with shorter experiences done locally? What about mission trips which occur away from their locality but still within the US?

I regularly hear about the international trips being poorly regarded, but rarely hear about local mission trips receiving the same scrutiny.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
This thread lost its purpose a LONG time ago. At this point it's two walls talking to each other. I'm honestly surprised that it hasn't been locked yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
This thread has gotten ridiculous. I don't think anyone here is arguing that longer trips as a whole don't provide more benefit to the locals, that there aren't significant problems with many of these trips (especially short-term ones), or that the volunteer won't benefit significantly from these trips, oftentimes more than the locals.

My point of contention was and is that these trips, even short-term ones, CANNOT provide lasting benefits to those being served in situations that they would otherwise receive no aid at all. Are most programs ideal? Of course not, and many, probably most, are as the people who are against these trips here claim. However, there are some short term trips which are not the same. I would be curious to know how many individuals arguing against these trips have actually participated in any of the. Additionally, many of the problems with the short-term exist with volunteering programs at home as well.

My question to the adcoms like @Goro and @TMC07 is that when applicants have these experiences on their app, if you ask about them are you asking about what they got out of the experience or about what they thought the impacts of those experiences were? Both? Do you do the same with shorter experiences done locally? What about mission trips which occur away from their locality but still within the US?

I regularly hear about the international trips being poorly regarded, but rarely hear about local mission trips receiving the same scrutiny.

You bring up good points. No one on here will argue that a longer trip will bring more benefit, but I will wholeheartedly argue that a short trip can still bring benefit. Comparing it to the peace corps and these year long commitments seems to be quite harsh. The average matriculation age for medical students is 24. When has this young individual had the time and money to commit to this demanding investment. This should not be the standard to which all international volunteering is applied.

And in regards to local volunteering... The majority of volunteers have entry level positions due to their minimal qualifications. Let’s be honest, how many of these volunteering opportunities that we have actually make a long term impact, because working at a food pantry or homeless shelter sure doesn’t help the homeless in terms of lifting them out of poverty. My point to all of this is why are the options long term impact or nothing? We are all limited by our own situations and should be able to help within our own means.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
This thread has gotten ridiculous. I don't think anyone here is arguing that longer trips as a whole don't provide more benefit to the locals, that there aren't significant problems with many of these trips (especially short-term ones), or that the volunteer won't benefit significantly from these trips, oftentimes more than the locals.

My point of contention was and is that these trips, even short-term ones, CANNOT provide lasting benefits to those being served in situations that they would otherwise receive no aid at all. Are most programs ideal? Of course not, and many, probably most, are as the people who are against these trips here claim. However, there are some short term trips which are not the same. I would be curious to know how many individuals arguing against these trips have actually participated in any of the. Additionally, many of the problems with the short-term exist with volunteering programs at home as well.

My question to the adcoms like @Goro and @TMC07 is that when applicants have these experiences on their app, if you ask about them are you asking about what they got out of the experience or about what they thought the impacts of those experiences were? Both? Do you do the same with shorter experiences done locally? What about mission trips which occur away from their locality but still within the US?

I regularly hear about the international trips being poorly regarded, but rarely hear about local mission trips receiving the same scrutiny.

I’m not an adcom, I’m a student interviewer at my medical school. I don’t ask interviewing students about these experiences first. We only discuss it if they bring it up in the context of something else.

And to your second question: trips done at home are fundamentally different. For starters, we don’t exploit our own people in the same way or to the same degree as we exploit the less fortunate abroad. The vast majority of people wouldn’t dream of taking photos of disadvantaged kids in the Bronx or of the homeless in LA and then posting them all over social media while talking about how they’re doing so much good for the world. Whether this is because it’s less “exotic” for social media or we perceive it as wrong, I don’t know. All I know is that it doesn’t happen often here, but it happens a whole lot abroad.

Also, organizations in the US are far more regulated, so your volunteer experience here is less likely to harm someone. A prime example of this is premeds administering vaccines in a clinic in sub-Saharan Africa, but only fetching blankets in their local hospital. You may be allowed to do stuff abroad that you aren’t qualified to do and you could hurt some. Hospitals and physicians here would be responsible for this. The same is not true abroad.

And as I stated before, we have the infrastructure set up here to encourage development and change. We also understand our environment and are held accountable for ourselves and what we do. When we don’t understand the world around us and we aren’t being held accountable, it’s easy to be blissfully ignorant about what we’ve actually done.
 
Last edited:
You bring up good points. No one on here will argue that a longer trip will bring more benefit, but I will wholeheartedly argue that a short trip can still bring benefit. Comparing it to the peace corps and these year long commitments seems to be quite harsh. The average matriculation age for medical students is 24. When has this young individual had the time and money to commit to this demanding investment. This should not be the standard to which all international volunteering is applied.

And in regards to local volunteering... The majority of volunteers have entry level positions due to their minimal qualifications. Let’s be honest, how many of these volunteering opportunities that we have actually make a long term impact, because working at a food pantry or homeless shelter sure doesn’t help the homeless in terms of lifting them out of poverty. My point to all of this is why are the options long term impact or nothing? We are all limited by our own situations and should be able to help within our own means.

No one did this or even suggested it. Go back and reread.
 
Top