Emergency Medicine is one of the few specialties of medicine that encompasses all disciplines of medicine.
One unique opportunity to learn more about diseases rarely seen in this country is to travel abroad. The International Humanitarian Medicine program at the MEdical College of Georgia at Augusta University allows Emergency Medicine residents the opportunity to travel to third world countries and provide medical care to those underserved by modern medicine. The experience however, is mutually beneficial, by educating and enlightening the physicians.
The trips are generally of 1-3 weeks duration, and most involve care of poor and disadvantaged citizens. Many trips take place in primitive environments such as villages in the Peruvian Amazon, remote towns in Myanmar, and the Masai region of Kenya. Team members sometimes are housed in simple hotel rooms but in the more remote regions of the world the team members sleep on sleeping bags underneath mosquito nets. Recent countries visited include the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Haiti, Peru, Dominican Republic, Romania, Turkey, and Kenya. On the drawing board are trips to China, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Egypt. The majority of the international trips available to residents are co-sponsored by Missions to the World a medical missionary group based in Atlanta, but no religious affiliations or participation are required of the medical team members.
