Care for the World
The rewards of providing care in another country are both personal and professional. Each year, UI Carver College of Medicine physicians travel outside the United States to provide care in a host of educational and clinical settings, and in the past several years, more of their students and trainees are joining them.
Chris Buresh, MD, who heads the college’s GME International Committee, makes frequent trips to Haiti. He describes his global volunteering this way:
“Working in a global setting reminds me why I went into medicine in the first place. The real emphasis on my work in Haiti is on taking care of people, here and now, and doing the right thing for them.
“In our crazy world, where everything might seem like it's going bad,” he adds, “opportunities like this show me there is hope in the basic humanity of taking care of one another.”
Here are vignettes of three recent global care trips.
Chris Buresh, MD – Haiti
“The village we work in used to see themselves as the poorest of the poor.”
Hans House, MD - Niger
“There is a sense that diagnosing with the hands and ears is a lost art.”
Daniel Bettis, MD - Haiti
“International outreach experiences enrich my practice.”