Demographic profile of physician participants in short-term medical missions.

Paul H Caldron,Ann Impens,Wim Groot,Milena Pavlova

doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1929-x

Paul H Caldron, Ann Impens + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1929-x

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Abstract

BackgroundThe US is the leading sending country for short term medical missions (STMMs), an unregulated and unsanctioned, grass roots form of direct medical service aid from richer countries to low and middle income countries. The objective of this study is to profile US physicians who go on such missions by means of a survey sample of the US physician population.MethodsAn online survey solicited information on physician participation in STMMS as well as demographic and professional features. Responses were descriptively tabulated and multivariate regressions were performed to model for physician profiles related to STMM participation.ResultsPhysician participants in STMMs are more likely to be a surgeon, anesthesiologist or pediatrician, married with few or no children at home, later in their career and have an income of $200–250 K.ConclusionsSpecialty is the strongest predictor of participation. STMM participation does not differ by race, ethnicity nor religion. Descriptive statistics further provide a limited profile of participants. Direct expenses may have less influence on participation than opportunity costs. Potential clues about motivation that may be inferred from the features of the profile are discussed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1929-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

The US is the leading sending country for short term medical missions (STMMs), an unregulated and unsanctioned, grass roots form of direct medical service aid from richer countries to low and middle income countries
The one-sample chi square test used for the comparison of the Physicians’ Giving Back Survey (PGBS) respondent sample to the US physician population showed statistical comparability with respect to the three demographic characteristics of race, civil status, type of medical degree, and noncomparability with respect to the five demographic characteristics of gender, age, International medical graduate (IMG) status, religion, and region of the country [10]
STMM participation prevalence (32%) exceeded pro-bono participation in local free or sliding scale clinics (17.5%), domestic short term missions (9.3%) and domestic disaster relief (8.8%), but less with those who indicated that a system was in place in their practices to accommodate patients with limited means to pay (39.3%)

Summary

Introduction

The US is the leading sending country for short term medical missions (STMMs), an unregulated and unsanctioned, grass roots form of direct medical service aid from richer countries to low and middle income countries. The activity wherein physicians and other medical workers from higher income countries go abroad for pre-planned periods of days to weeks in order to provide uncompensated direct care to persons in lower and middle income countries (LMIC) weeks has been commonly referred to, among other terms, as short-term medical missions (STMMs). These excursions are distinguished from full-time relief employment and ad hoc responses to domestic or external disasters. Our objective is to identify the characteristics that might impel a physician to go, not to define factors of poorer country need or social ties that may draw US physicians there, other than what may be inferred from where in the world they go

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