The hope of this trip is multi-faceted. I hope to participate in trauma-care and medical flight programming, particularly to rural areas, from a different lens. I plan to spend time with the MedFlight program going out on calls and contribute to care within local hospitals. I will also participate in a knowledge exchange and volunteering.
I will spend a majority of my time in South Australia, the driest state in Australia. It has a rapidly growing population and a rural population that suffers from similar challenges with access to resources as the US. South Australia also unfortunately has heavy crystal meth usage, and high need with respect to substance use disorder. I will then spend time in Southern New Zealand with a similar population. The ability to serve and learn from these population was a motivator for this trip.
I hope to bring back lessons learned to better inform my future practice, particularly to rural and under-resourced areas, domestically and in future mission work. I also plan to participate in an educational exchange and help to sow the initial seeds of future partnerships.
