Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

The Impact of a Volunteer Medical Mission
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I submitted the pretrip proposal paper and the post-trip report of the health care
students’ responses to the global health authority on this subject, Carl Taylor; 5 his
congratulatory response and analysis, coupled with a report of his own mission at
the same time as ours is appended (Appendix F.) The self-evaluation provided by
each participant before and after the service learning experience conveyed the change
in each that each hoped had humanized what had otherwise been a somewhat selfish
and pampered protected first world consumer. If this self-analysis is correct and
sustainable, the effort should be a universal prescription in medical education and
not just an elective for a self-selected group already motivated for service learning.
The data derived by this research into the health care students’ responses to their
first medical mission would provide support for the universal integration of such
experience into the health education curriculum that Carl Taylor had advised. 6 This
service-learning encounter may have been even more life-changing for the first-world
health care students than it may have been for the third-world Haitian refugees each
had come to serve.
Appendix A
Questionnaire Filled in on the Outbound Flight before the
Medical Mission for Flood Relief Victims of the Dr/Haiti
of Hispaniola
Name, Age, School, Year and Date
1. Languages: Spanish: French: Creole: Ethnic origin:
2. Have you ever done anything like this before?
3. If yes: When? Where” What was your role? How did you like it?
4. How did you decide to come on this trip at this time?
5. How many of our group do you know very well?
6. What do you think is your primary motivation for serving in this medical
mission?
7. How will this kind of experience fit into your career plans?
8. Do you think now that you will attempt another medical mission?
9. If yes, In the same? or another site?
10.Have you traveled abroad in the last ten years?
11.If yes: First world destinations? Third world countries?
12.What are your expectations?
13.What would you like to do that you are looking forward to reporting
upon returning?
14.What are you anxious about? What are you eager that you NOT encounter?
15.How do you think this experience will change you?
16.What do you think will be the hardest thing for you to overcome or to
enjoy least?
17.What do you think now will be the most memorable part of the experience?
18.Do you keep a diary? A tape recording or dictation?
19.Photo log? Film? How many rolls? Digital?
20.What role would you like to have in reporting the experience of our mission
upon returning?
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