Doctors, Medical Student Volunteers Needed in Rural El Salvador
Catlin Polley in Estancia
This note comes from our friends at Doctors for Global Health:
Could I…
…Take a year out of med school between my third and fourth years?
…Delay residency for a year after graduation?
…Leave my practice as a physician or my retirement for a time?
In Estancia, El Salvador, a clinic in a remote, rural community needs you. To trek up mudslicked hillsides in the dusk to find a pregnant women who can´t move her limbs or a man in a hammock with a toothache run out-of-control. To think about and act upon the lack of latrines and the rampant childhood malnutrition. To face the health effects of rising food prices and strip mining projects, and to be called to speak out…
Come, work with Doctors for Global Health www.dghonline.org, a volunteer-run organization of health providers, teachers, psychologists, artists, and anyone with a mind for health, that seeks to foster a vision of Liberation Medicine through accompanying grass roots projects in Latin America and Uganda.
It is an amazing education in being a community physician, in public health, and the need for activism on the policy level. You will be challenged in your medical knowledge, but mostly in your personal sources of energy, motivation, courage, and strength. You will changed by people living in poverty who work for liberation.
For more info on this amazing international health opportunity, please visit the website for Doctors for Global Health, www.dghonline.org. If you want to talk about volunteering in Estancia or about what it’s like to break from the traditional course of medical education, feel free to contact us.
Solidaridad!
Current 4th year medical students from Baylor and Penn volunteering in Estancia, Morazan, El Salvador
Note: This posting was corrected on 2/14/2009. The original posting had a photo that was not from Estancia.
Hello – I am not currently a medical student but would like some information regarding your volunteer activities. Best, Katherine
Katherine, I do not know if Doctors for Global Health takes volunteers who are not either physicians or medical students. You could look on their website: http://www.dghonline.org and/or contact the two medical students listed in the posting: Don Lassus and Caitlin Polley. Best regards, Matt Anderson
Dear Katherine,
We are most in need of a clinical volunteer who needs to have completed at least three years of med school. However, we have talked about inviting volunteers with different types of training to complement this person. Please go to the DGH website and respond to the interested volunteer email address with your skills, interests and the dates you´d be available. If DGH does not have a placement available now, keep your mind open to the possibility of taking a year out of med school or before residency to expand your understanding of health, health care and what it means to be a doctor working for liberation.
Peace