Overseas Medical Volunteer
Insider Info
A woman is clutching her mouth and moaning with pain. She makes her way
down the cobblestone path from her village to a makeshift medical station,
where her mouth will be examined for the first time in her life.
The dentist reassures the patient, and gets ready to extract a diseased
tooth. Suddenly, the power goes out. But the dentist is used to working in
minimal conditions, and someone holds a flashlight so the operation can continue.
Global medical volunteers travel to different parts of the world to give
aid and medical attention to people in great need. The medical professionals
who go on these ventures are doctors, nurses and dentists; they are assisted
by a host of non-medical personnel. The non-medical volunteers help with odd
jobs, set up facilities and help organize the camps.
Global medical volunteers travel to places such as Peru, Thailand, India,
Africa, Guatemala, Venezuela and Honduras.
"The places can be very remote," says Deborah Crow, who works with an organization
called Flying Doctors of America. "We've had some missions that get to villages
by rafting a river or going by horseback." Other missions are held in camps;
volunteers often stay in hotels in less remote areas.
Volunteers don't just pack their bags and decide to go to a foreign country
to give aid. It takes planning and preparation to be a medical volunteer.
"It took a quite a bit of research to find the right organization," says
Greg Stidham, a volunteer for the International Children's Heart Foundation.
Instead of going alone, volunteers usually find a compatible organization
that will coordinate a volunteer medical mission for them.
"These days the volunteer donates time and effort for a few weeks, but
returns in his or her usual job after the brief time volunteering," says Joe
DiCarlo, a medical volunteer.
Ideally, the volunteer returns a couple times a year to the same location.
"In that way they can build up a good, strong relationship with the people
they are involved with," says DiCarlo.
Most volunteers help set up a care system with the local medical staff
in the country, rather than setting up a foreign clinic. "It's rare that an
American or Canadian or French group actually puts together their own clinic
overseas and directly cares for the people," says DiCarlo. "If that were
the case, the minute the outsiders close down the program the service is lost,
and it is rare that an outsider stays in a foreign place forever."
It's better to train or collaborate with local doctors and nurses to help
them work in a more efficient and effective manner, adds DiCarlo.
Foreign medical centers usually have a willing staff but lack other resources.
"What has been lacking has usually been systematic things: the hospitals aren't
run well, creativity and initiative are stifled and good equipment can't be
afforded," says DiCarlo. The need for medical volunteers remains steady around
the world.
"We're steadily growing," says Crow about her organization. "We sometimes
have to add another mission if there are more people willing to volunteer."
It's difficult to estimate how many people in North America are volunteering
their services overseas. It's estimated that at least 10,000 people help out
each year. This doesn't include workers for organizations such as the Red
Cross, which pays its medical relief staff.
The car creeps up the steep winding hill to Joe DiCarlo's temporary residence
in Zagreb, Croatia. During the war, he volunteered his services as a doctor
at a local hospital. But in a place that was often filled with chaos, DiCarlo
spent much of his time just trying to get to places to administer his medicine.
His Bosnian friend, Emir, pulls over to the curb to drop DiCarlo off for
the night. They sit for a few minutes in the darkness making plans to meet
tomorrow to drive to Bosnia. Unfortunately, their car is parked in front
of the president's house and guards come out to investigate.
"Apparently this trips off some sort of protocol and we are detained,"
says DiCarlo. "More military guards come, then the military police, then the
state police." They are held up for more than two hours when their passage
is finally cleared. "Two hours in the snow, apparently a direct threat to
the safety of the president and they never did search our car for weapons,"
says DiCarlo.
The next day DiCarlo took a bus down the hill. "It had snowed 15 centimeters
[six inches] up there, and I more than half hoped the trip would be called
off," says DiCarlo. He wanted to leave early because they were heading through
Serb-held territory and needed to make use of the daylight. The snow tapered
off as their car and a convoy of two others headed towards Bosnia. They waited
at the river for a small ferry that could only carry 10 cars at a time. After
hours of waiting, a larger ferry was put in use. It took three hours to cross,
and then the ferry had trouble docking to unload the cars.
"They got the kinks out; the sun went down and we got across," says DiCarlo.
The convoy that was supposed to be waiting for DiCarlo on the other side
was gone.
"Emir apologizes for the bumpy ride, saying that he wants to drive as fast
as possible to avoid any unauthorized checkpoints," says DiCarlo. "No one
is talking, although I am silently cursing having taken this trip and this
job." They continue to drive flat out in the pitch black. "This goes on and
on and the eeriness never fades." In the distance, they spot soldiers on
the road: a checkpoint.
"You got any weapons?" the soldier asks, peering into the car. The soldiers
wave them through without asking for their passports and DiCarlo finally makes
it to his destination.
DiCarlo is a pediatrician who volunteers to administer aid overseas. He
has since finished his work in Bosnia. Even though supplies are often limited
in these places, he finds that getting to the job is often much harder than
getting the job done.
Getting to the job was also difficult for Greg Stidham, who wanted to volunteer
his services abroad. "I began to look for volunteer opportunities and found
there was no easy way to learn what was out there," he says. It took him a
couple years of research to find an organization, and even then he wasn't
sure what he was getting into.
"A 70-plus dynamo of a woman invited me to visit a children's hospital
in Nicaragua," says Stidham. "I was led to believe that the purpose was to
be for me to provide some teaching."
The situation was confusing at the hospital, and he wasn't sure how to
help. However, he did find out that among other problems, the hospital couldn't
perform surgery on kids with congenital heart disease because of a lack of
training and resources. "I thought, 'OK, I can help with this,'" says Stidham.
He went back to the U.S., and two years later, once funding was available,
Stidham was back in Nicaragua.
"The first open-heart surgeries in the country were done by our team working
side-by-side with our Nicaraguan colleagues," he says. "The idea was to teach
them these procedures so that they might be self-sufficient in five years."
The trip was a huge success, medically as well as diplomatically. The U.S.
ambassador to Nicaragua told Stidham and his colleagues that they had done
more for the relationship between the two countries than he had done in the
past six months.
"Probably a bit of an exaggeration, but the enthusiasm was there and the
media coverage for the entire time was indeed dramatic," says Stidham.
You don't have to be able to perform open-heart surgery to volunteer on
a medical expedition. Deborah Crow took a trip to a few mountain villages
in Peru. She isn't in the health profession, but went to film a documentary
and to help organize the mission.
"You learn how wonderful it is to spread the wealth out to people who
have nothing," says Crow. "It's given me a new perspective on life, and to
remember to be grateful for a bath, food on the table and access to medicine
-- something too many people don't have."
How to Get Involved
The cost of helping out varies with different organizations. Some will
foot the bill for transportation, food and lodging. Others are only able take
care of a volunteer's needs once he or she gets to the country.
"Even if they pay everything, you can give up a lot of time to do this,
and in our culture time is money," says Stidham.
The physical requirements vary with the type of work you want to do. "In
our case, we were walking down cobblestone mountain paths to get to the medical
station," says Crow.
You can go to more accessible or more remote places. "The demands depend
entirely on the project, and the projects vary greatly," says Stidham.
Work opportunities can be generated in the area where a person has volunteered
their services. Organizations such as the Red Cross also coordinate missions
where they pay medical staff for their services.
Non-medical aides can get experience in the field and see if they enjoy
working in the medical profession.
Links
Doctors Without Borders
One of the largest international medical organizations
Flying Doctors of America
Contact them and they will send you an information packet
American Red Cross
Information on volunteer opportunities
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