As you have observed, in many “Third World Countries,” medical service is not as advanced as we are accustomed to in our country. Also, there is usually a great difference between what can be found in a major city and what people in the country have access to.

My suggestion would be to make contact with an agency with whom you would like to work. The people on the field know what is needed, both now and in the future.

As a rule of thumb, medical sophistication is growing each year. More and more medical personnel are receiving better and better preparation. You might find it easier to secure a visa if you had a higher degree. The attitude of the administrators of many countries is that they already have medical people trained at a lower level, and you wouldn’t want to “compete” with them. Having the opportunity of superior training would mean you could help local nurses and nurses’ aides develop their skills, even if you weren’t able to use all you know about equipment and meds they don’t have access to as yet – though may have in the future.

It would be well worth it, once you have something of an idea of where you would like to serve, to make an exploratory trip for several weeks, to see what is being done, what is needed, and how you might fit in. It would be important to talk to both missionaries and nationals. A trip of this kind would also be inspiring, give you contacts with whom you could correspond, and stimulate your prayer life. You may even discover that medical help is not the greatest need at this point in time.