Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

It is that higher accountability that should be a feature in the motivations
for many of us who will continue to look at the larger population of the
globe’s citizens. “World Class Surgeons” are much more useful near home
base as well as abroad, not simply for the improvisations and ingenious techniques
that can be carried back as skills learned as a gift from the third to
First Worlds, but also in the approach to the increasingly diverse populations
of patients closer to home. If protecting turf is a worthwhile investment
of time and attention as the surgical world seems to be contracting
around us in the over-serviced First World, it would seem that life is too
short and precious to adapt the ACS motto Omnibus per Artem to such
pursuits. But if one is interested in an ever-expanding growth industry with
an ever-increasing demand for one’s services, caring for and teaching others
in operating on patients of the very diverse and disadvantaged world is highly
gratifying and mind-expanding. It is a very contagious worthwhile experience
for those who are motivated and prepared.
If it is an obvious truism that, ultimately, you cannot save your life, you
have but two options—you can sell it or you can give it. If you are going to
opt for the former, there never will be a return high enough to justify the
exchange rate.
I do not know how long your life will take—it will take very little. But I
do know how much it can give. It can keep on giving forever.
Glenn W. Geelhoed