Project MedSend

Many of you have asked about funding. Medical school is very expensive, and I graduated with $70,000 in debt and owing three years of work in an underserved area. Over the past six years I have paid $1000 per month to pay off the debt and completed three years as the only physician at an immigration detention center in Arizona. I still have over $22,000 in debt.

This is where Project MedSend steps in -- an organization formed at the request of the Christian Medical Association, they pay off loans for people serving long-term on the mission field as long as the work is in health care and has a community health aspect to it (for sustainability). I applied over a year ago, received a grant from them, and they made the first loan payment this month.

What this means: instead of waiting until 2010-ish to serve the poor in Argentina, I am here now! It also means that instead of getting used to a large physician salary and lifestyle and finding it even more difficult to leave the country and live on support, I can go while I am still used to a ¨student¨budget.

Check out their site, www.medsend.org for neat stories on health care workers released to work without a huge burden of debt.