As a pre-med student, medical brigades offer not only the chance to experience medicine and its application, but also the chance to provide help to those in need in the true spirit of healthcare. Yet, I find myself doubting whether I am actually helping the people in these areas, and if I am not just a pawn of western organizations unsustainably trying to fix problems without identifying the root cause. I want to learn and be of help, but what does a brigade actually entail?

After discussing this with some of my pre-med upperclassmen, a debate arose around how volunteer tourism can be impactful, but there are those who take the wrong message from their experience. I took note that mission trips, international volunteer programs, and such are aid and offer much support to communities who need it -- it's great work. But one should be careful of the lessons they take from these experiences as a volunteer. There are those who see themselves as "saviors", people who take pride in meaning so much to less fortunate people.

However, brigades should in fact be a wake up call to the ever-growing wealth gap in global healthcare, and the lack of opportunities depending on where one lives and their government. This savior mentality is hypocritical since there are citizens right here in the United States who cannot afford basic treatments and prescriptions because they do not have insurance, or their insurance does not cover their medication. If help is offered, it is in reality extending and sharing our own privilege to communities in other places.

International volunteer programs offer a variety of aid that ranges from temporary and immediate healthcare to educating the local residents to create an independent, self-functioning community. Sometimes, the programs do more harm than good: when volunteers end up taking away jobs from local residents, when the money they spent on flight tickets would have done more good if donated, or when they build a school but do not structure a curriculum or invest in teachers. Poorly managed and with the wrong incentives, things like this can result in a harmful NGO.

In our debate, my peers and I came to the conclusion that perhaps global volunteering exposes our ignorance and educates us on the realities of healthcare and wealth. It can also be used as a ploy to simply sound worldly and 'woke', without understanding much about why you went and why you did what you did. In order to balance this, NGOs should make it a point to educate volunteers on the political, social, and economic histories of their locations.