Interest in global health and resources for reducing disparities in global health have rapidly expanded during the past 20 years. Much of the growing interest has been driven by students and young professionals who seek to address global inequities, particularly inequities in availability and accessibility to health care resources. The current generation of students and young professionals continually seeks new educational and working opportunities in global health. These individuals are not only coming from the traditional pathways of public health, medicine, nursing, and anthropology, but now increasingly come from backgrounds in other health sciences, as well as economics, business, law,...

We have a unique opportunity to provide services to poor, oppressed, and underserved people around the world. Today, with global travel being so common and accessible, it is easier than ever to volunteer or work internationally.

People have various motivations for seeking a global health or medical opportunity, ranging from the desire to serve less fortunate people around the world to seeking a sense of international adventure and personal discovery. A global health experience can be as short as a week or two, but some people will choose to spend a lifetime tending to the health needs of people in...

A career in global health and medicine is a noble pursuit. It may begin with the best of intentions, such as wanting to help disadvantaged populations or to provide faith-based services to others. An adventurous person may also want to learn about another culture, to explore an exciting new world, to test new skills learned in medicine or epidemiology, to seek one’s cultural heritage, or to learn a new language. In many cases, the motivation to pursue an international experience will be a combination of the various reasons given above. However, the reasons behind why you are choosing to have...

Many people say something along the lines of ‘I would like to do something in global health, but I don’t know how to get started.’ Maybe you are saying something similar. Becoming involved in global health is not difficult once you understand the global health landscape and identify your goals. There are many different areas of global health and medicine, and thus many different ways to become engaged. While opportunities within nearly all of these areas have been expanding in recent years, some areas of global health have had more rapid growth than others. This has been in large part...

Opportunities to become more engaged in global health activities and learning are abundant. This chapter provides information that is tailored to people who want to either do clinical work, conduct research, or learn more about global health issues. Experiences gained from the opportunities examined in this chapter can also be beneficial for obtaining work with a governmental or non-governmental organization (Chapter 5) or for pursuing more significant educational opportunities (Chapter 6). The opportunities listed in this chapter contain relevant descriptions and contact information. This information has been either published online or supplied by the organizations. Therefore, these people or organizations...

There are many types of organizations involved in coordinating and conducting global health work. Governmental organizations may either operate on behalf of several countries, such as the World Health Organization, or a single country, such as the Canadian International Development Agency. Non-governmental health organizations have more variety in their background, goals, and motivations. They may be private or public, for-profit or not-for-profit, and religiously affiliated or not religiously affiliated. In this chapter, the most prominent governmental and non-governmental organizations working in global health and medicine are presented and briefly described. Some organizations listed in this chapter, primarily foundations, may serve...

Numerous educational opportunities and pathways are available for people interested in learning more about global health and medicine. The more conventional pathways into global health have been through medicine, nursing, public health, and other allied health professions. However, as we have emphasized in earlier chapters, these are certainly not the only paths to a career or experience in global health. Any additional training or educational opportunity that you seek should be related to your interests and motivations in global health, and not by the conventional dogma. For example, if a person is interested in formulating or shaping global health policy,...

‘But how will I pay for it?’ is the often asked question regarding a global health experience abroad. There are myriad possibilities for funding an adventure in global health. This chapter explores different possibilities for financing global health journeys and includes websites for specific grants, scholarships, fellowships, and other funding sources that may help make a global health experience possible and affordable.

For a health profession student, financial aid comes in three basic forms: governmental (state and federal aid), institutional (funded by the student’s college or university), and private (typically funded by various civic, religious, and professional organizations).

Aid (including...

One of the most important aspects in achieving an excellent global health experience is proper trip planning and preparation. There are many considerations to take into account before embarking on an international experience. A well-planned trip can avoid a great deal of hardship or disappointment later. It is especially important to consider that it often takes much longer than you expect to prepare for a trip, including delays in getting visas and work permits, difficulties in registering for medical practice, and difficulties in communicating with host countries (although e-mail and Internet access has made this significantly easier). The following topics...

Like my father, I trained to be an obstetrician and gynecologist and was fully prepared to enter into private medical practice in Boston. Before taking this path, however, I decided during my last year of residency to spend a year teaching at a new medical school in Lagos, Nigeria. I went to Africa with every expectation of returning in a year. Until then I had not given much thought to global health or demographic issues. This began to change thanks to a wonderful mentor at the teaching hospital in Nigeria, Dr Robert Wright, an internationally renowned public health expert. He...

Global health and medicine are exciting ways to see the world while improving the health of people in less-developed regions. The greatest difficulty that most people have usually is not in deciding to embark on some international experience, but in determining how to get started. A variety of global health topics and issues have been covered in this guidebook. Hopefully, these chapters have given the sense that becoming engaged in global health is both possible and realistic. Since global health encompasses a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, nobody should be deterred. Finding a suitable position may take some effort,...