Global health "mission trip"

📚 Preclinical

My medical school's global health org takes first and second year med students on a mission trip to a latin american country for a week. I am a native fluent Spanish speaker and spent the last year teaching english in Spain, which has made me passionate about language and learning about new cultures, so I feel like this would be a really cool opportunity to learn about a different culture and practice my medical Spanish skills.

I am just hesitant because I was always skeptical about these kinds of medical mission trips during undergrad, and I truly believe these types of things are more for the benefit of the student than the patients, which I don't love. I feel like now that I am in medical school it may be different, but I still feel like I won't know enough yet to justify going on this trip.

I am so torn because this would be such a cool opportunity that I think I would really really enjoy, but it just feels morally questionable for some reason and I don't want residency programs to look at it unfavorably. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated!

Posted Aug 29, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

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