International Service: Connecting Physicians Through Global Volunteerism

Introduction to Global Service 0:00

Welcome to the Doctors Making a Difference podcast, where we help physicians to be empowered with the tools they need to be successful in medicine, in finance, and in life. Join us as we highlight doctors and other professionals around the world who are making a difference. Today, I am delighted to welcome Kimberly Haley Coleman. Today, our episode is about a tool that I think will be really helpful to most listeners. A lot of times on the podcast, we interview physicians, but this one is a special episode.

We're going to talk with Kimberly about international service and the ways that we can get involved in doing that. Kimberly is not a physician herself, but has worked extensively with physicians and organizations across the globe. Super excited to have her as a guest and to talk about this. And I think you're going to find this interesting. And I'm really excited to meet you, Kimberly. Would you mind introducing yourself to our audience? Hi, Peter. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

And I should say, while I'm not, if almost everyone else in my family is, if you've ever heard of a Dr. Haley in your life, I am related to that doctor in some way. Globalware is an organization that's been around about 25 years. We have US and Canadian charity status, and we operate short-term service abroad projects. And by short-term, six nights, seven days, and we're working about 30 hours a week. We do the fun stuff. We have some free time, but really a lot of human engagement, direct interaction locally with people, culturally learning about them and experiencing life with them.

And a component of this is medical service. And a big piece of why I started it so many years ago was there was, from what I observed, a big difference between willingness to serve and time people had to serve. There was a big gap. that people often don't have 27 months to give to the Peace Corps or a few weeks to give to Doctors Without Borders or the church mission that might be going to Uganda isn't happening at the time that someone has available. And that was really the genesis of it is after I had started volunteering abroad and seeing what it did for me in terms of just really lighting me up and making me feel engaged back in humanity in a new setting, not in an office setting.

What that did for me and explaining that to others when I would come back and their enthusiasm to join me and seeing that I wasn't the only one.

How GlobeAware Works 2:37

that was hungering for this. And that was really the genesis for me on how this came about. It's not my background, but it's where my circuitous life journey brought me. And so we're in 26 countries around the world and the service isn't always medical. We are installing concrete floors in the homes of single moms. We're building adobe ladena stoves in Cusco. We're assembling and distributing wheelchairs for landmine victims in Cambodia. So they really really vary, but they're all intended. We are not swooping in really as heroes.

We are working. as partners locally, side by side with these communities. And I cannot emphasize this enough. It is as much of a learning experience for our volunteers as anything else. We are partners and they're getting to see our culture in a beautiful, loving, empathetic way in the same way we are learning about their culture in a way you wouldn't as a traditional tourist. Oh yeah, no, I've just, I told you before we hit record, I've been on quite a few of these types of trips and they're life changing.

And I've gone enough times, not nearly as much as you have, but I've gone enough times that I know what to expect. This is what we're going to do. But the thing that is interesting to me and you hit on this. is when somebody goes and they've never experienced it and they go and they realize it's not me taking something to them because I'm superior or something like that. You're simply working along with other people and you rub elbows, shoulders with them and you're side by side in their community doing it their way along with them.

It's just like their eyes just pop and wow, this is another person on earth and we are so similar even though we have so many different things about our backgrounds. And you come back just excited about life. Like I can't think of anything that lights people up as much as that and just marvel at how people respond to that when they go and they have that experience. And they're out working all day, but they come back just supercharged. And that's pretty cool that you noticed that even early on as you got that started.

It's just such an interesting platform to feel empowered and connected. When you've got an environment where the food is different, the music, the faith, the architecture, everything around you, all of your senses are experiencing something different. And so it opens up something in you that may be hard to get in your regular work-a-day environment where you've got the same of everything, even if you're making a difference at home too. And we will get criticism on occasion that why are we doing this abroad when there are still people, of course, on this continent who have needs and help, which is a very valid point.

And I think we would say that service starts at home and you should be nourishing your community, your family, your neighbors. And to the extent you have the resources and availability to go beyond that, that's what we're here for. And for those who are privileged enough to be able to do that, it does engage in that very innovative, transformative way because the setting is so very different. And while there We must acknowledge there's a huge carbon footprint getting on an airplane to serve. We're not doing this because it's the most efficient thing to do.

You could just write a check. It's what happens when the two humans connect to both the person serving and to the community that is really hard. to quantify the soft power thing that happens where that local community now has warm, fuzzy, beautiful feelings. And the person serving comes back with this new perspective on the world and has this chance to challenge their own assumptions of whatever belief system defaults they have. And I'll give you an example in Costa Rica, for example, they don't use traditional snail mail addresses to send things.

You have to write out a paragraph. And we, in our structured week, flash these out every morning we'll have a discussion about this and people are always like that just it's so inefficient that can't work but you know in Japan they haven't used traditional snail mill addresses for many years. The whole hope is that our volunteers are getting to know and understand the real beauties and real challenges of a culture that they otherwise would not. And then come home and you're able to see their own defaults in their life and able to look at them more objectively.

Do I like this? Do I want this? Can I improve upon this? Am I even more grateful for my standard of living that I was before? And what about hey, seeing kids that don't all have phones and they're chasing butterflies in a waterfall, but they don't have phones,

Learning Through Cultural Immersion 7:18

what is the beautiful thing about this culture that maybe some of the kids in our culture don't get to see? And it's really hard to do. If you're getting off and on a bus and going to churches and museums, which I think everyone should do if they can, it's something different than that. It is that connection that changes you and leaves the community a better place. And it can be hard to do accidentally or on your own. It takes some planning and structure, at least the way we go about doing it, because it's a short term.

How can you really get something done and engage meaningfully if you're only going to be there for a few days? And I don't think anybody would argue that, hey, if you're going to be in the Peace Corps for 27 months, the deep value of that, this isn't that if somebody can take the 27 months, they should. So this is for that place in between for people who might've thought, hey, I just don't have that kind of time. I need to be able to, like a cruise, pull up what country am I going to go to and on what date.

It needs to be that simple to fit in with many people's lives. And so that is, that's our space. is powerful work. And I think the connections, like I said, they're life-lasting. I've made lifelong friends from the places I've gone because they're real, sincere, deep connections. I remember the first time I went when I was in medical school and I went to one of these in Ecuador. And I loved it. I marveled at that, that the people we were serving and working alongside with, they trusted us with their most vulnerable members of their community, their children, their elderly.

And they would come with them and they would travel for miles and miles to be there because they wanted to work with us. And then we worked with a foundation It wasn't just bringing a duffel bag and disappearing. They showed up and they had a structure in country to say, okay, these people we've identified with serious health problems that need subsequent surgery or follow-up care, we will follow up with them and we'll see them. And then the next time I came back a few months later, and what do you know, the person that hadn't seen any other physician in the intervening time, the joke was like, oh, you're this kid's primary care physician.

But it's true, like you just have these interactions with people and there's this deep level of trust and connection. And it would be a lot harder to obtain that by just writing a check, like you mentioned. But it is a unique connecting experience for anybody that has that opportunity and I hope most people listening to this will have an opportunity to do one of these at some point. I hope so too. I see it, I hate to say it this way, but I do see it as a selfish enterprise, but one that benefits everyone regardless because of what it does.

Just for sparking that joy, getting back in touch with that universal humanity that if you're just going a routine, it can be easy to overlook. I think one of the misconceptions a lot of people have when they're embarking on a service experience like this, they might either come in thinking how they're going to be saviors. Not that the work we're doing isn't helping because it always is a very tangible thing that we're doing, but they don't realize what they're going to get from it. And they also go in.

The typical kind of question we'll get is, okay, what time are we going to be starting? Are we starting at eight or are we starting at 8.15? And what are the kinds of structure that happen in the communities where we work is very different from the structure that we bring. So we may tell all of our community members, we're going to be lined up at 8 a.m. and they may not get there till nine. They may show up at six. And our volunteers will often work long past whenever they will say, hey, we said we would cut the clinic off at three or four today.

It's three or four and they'll want to keep working. So we can have all of these plans, but in most of the communities where we work, they don't own watches. Most of them don't have phones. So if we are using our traditional organizational systems, there's a disconnect. And so we try with our coordinators, our bilingual staff that are with everybody, to try and keep everybody on this page of open your minds a little bit. We're going to get a lot done, but it's not going to be the way we may be used to it.

And the facilities are never the same of whatever someone has got at home. So when a physician, if it's a dentist or an ophthalmologist, when we're working in the clinics that we've often built with non-medical personnel, we'll have chairs and we'll have supplies. They're not the same and many of the times they're outdated. And so there's this learning curve that it's less than perfect conditions. And yet when you arrive, you realize the need is so great. You're often working with people where they don't have electricity, flushing toilets, they have dirt floors in their homes, any care.

is better than what they had before our volunteer has arrived. Even if the chair got tears in the leather and the light in the room is off, once people arrive, they realize, yeah, we are definitely making a difference here, but all the stuff that's happening with the local community in and around that experience, aside from the medical care, is just as important. So anybody going into this to try and put aside some of the expectations of what they envision this would look like trying to replicate.

However, they might do whatever medical service they do at home. It's going to look very different and it's going to vary by country and even by season. How that looks and that it's okay to let go of that. I hate to say this, this relentless pursuit of productivity because it will get done. It just, again, it will be different.

Sustainability and Local Partnership 13:01

I just have reflected on this. We make more mileage and more traction with the work that we went to do when we do it in the way that works best for them. Right. Specifically to that because I operate on a schedule and patients come every 20 minutes and you have to move yourself away from that a little bit because if you try to do it your way, they'll try to conform because they want to please you because you're there. But what I've found is when we build systems where we want this to have an ongoing long-term impact, we have to do it in the way that makes sense with the people that are organizing it.

And I tell volunteers that have gone with me, you have to kind of let go of that and just say, let go of what you thought was going to work as far as schedule and timing and do it their way. And we will try to. collaborate and work together. And at the end of the process, we hope that we're doing medical stuff. We hope that we've identified those with the greatest need. We've tied them in with the resources. We've gotten the follow-up information. And they don't have a phone, so we just know the people in the communities that we work with.

And they will go to their homes and follow up with them. And we work with these organizations that They do it in such a different way, but it's much more successful if you just show up and say, I'm here to help. I'm not here looking down on you or not bringing some service from outside because you have nothing and I have everything. It's more about this idea of culturally sharing. And then you come and say, I can help you, but let's do this together. It is really, it's both functionally important, but I think it's also mentally important as you connect with other people, not to say, We're going to force somebody to do it one way or the other.

It's better to try to find that connection and find what works, even though you're in really a different or maybe sparse conditions. So I'm glad that you hit on that point. Yeah. And we will often find that people coming into any of these service situations will, because they're in this different environment, working with the local communities will often hit upon solutions and resolutions to issues that nobody And this could be something as simple as we've had people see newborn babies delivered with some kind of blood issue and a volunteer decided, hey, I'm going to go with them to the hospital to see what the care would cost.

and covering the costs that we didn't ask them to do this. This was not on our agenda. This was not a part of the experience, but the kinds of things that will happen when people are fully immersed in an environment where they're definitely living with less resources than what most of our volunteers have ever imagined. Even though, look, our accommodations They have flushing toilets and electricity and running water and hot water and all this stuff. So there is what should be acknowledged, a power differential.

Just having a passport to travel on is such an invisible, umbilical cord of privilege of what you're able to do. And most of the people in the communities where we serve don't have passports or the resources or ability to travel. So in a sense, we are bringing the world to them at the same time we are learning about their culture. You know, there's one story I was just thinking of recently. We had a trip with a group I've worked with in Uganda earlier this year and had several people on the trip that had never been on anything like that.

And a child came into the clinic who had malaria and was pretty dehydrated, needed some IV fluids. I think in the place we saw this, we were in a little school out in a community that's 20 or 30 miles from the nearest hospital. Their hospitals are very different, but a place where they could get some sort of IV fluids or aid And it was interesting because at home, if somebody gets sick and they need IV fluids, we take them there in our car, or you got a taxi or an Uber, or you call the ambulance if you're really sick.

And there, all they have is a motorcycle. So you have this situation where the child needs IV fluids, the mom doesn't have money to take the baby even to the hospital, much less receive the care. And so it was interesting that the volunteer group paid for a motorcycle for this mom to load up her baby on the back of a motorcycle. So there's three people on this little teeny motorcycle, trekking across the country to get IV fluids at the hospital. And I would say every time I've gone, there's some situation like that and people want to help.

And it doesn't require very much, just a little bit of an assistance. And then when we leave some resources for the local community or the local care organization to provide ongoing care, A lot of times those people get follow-up and then they can pull themselves out of the poverty cycle. That's another one that I've really noticed is you can go and make a difference for a few days and that has an impact. But what even leaves a longer impact is if you say, okay, now this child can go to school. Now this family can afford to send their children to get some education.

And you have the long-term impact of that over several years, decades of life. And a lot of people pull themselves out of that deep poverty cycle. What have you noticed on that? Yeah, so I feel like sustainability, so we really have two main mission statements. And one of them is to promote sustainability. For us, that means helping people stand on their own two feet. So we're not out there distributing candy and cash. The whole point is that we want them to, whoever we're serving with, will be even more independent because of our interaction, right?

And we'll feel more empowered and stronger. And that's really our guiding philosophy. That said, we do in almost every instance, people will bring if they have an extra suitcase full of things to leave behind. And it's funny, we will get asked, what size clothing should I bring? What kind of shoes? And in the communities where we work, the townships in South Africa, people will say any sort of soccer, anything that you bring will get useful. What size? No, no, no, just bring anything. people will arrive and then realize oh they really don't have it they're playing barefoot and people will leave behind their own clothes when they realize oh these tennis shoes that i got messed up working with concrete or whatever i can see now how even that is appreciated because now somebody walking to school is less likely to get injured with their feet because of something so simple.

So while we are always trying to focus on, let's do what we can to promote sustainability and to promote independence, there's such an allure to being able to also meet an immediate need, which is never an official part of our program, but we have an area in our orientation that says, We're always asked if you want to bring donations, what to bring.

Who Can Volunteer and What It Costs 19:40

And so we give some ideas. If you want to bring rulers and solar calculators and things like that, they will be used. But so will any used clothing you leave behind. And we really do take that seriously, that we're there to really try and sustain the community to not depend on us. We are in all of our communities regularly, pretty much every other week throughout the year. So for some reason, something doesn't get finished. That next group will finish it. And there's something about having that longevity, that long-term relationship with the community that really strengthens the overall relationship in terms of what's happening.

I know we're not just one and done and wanting to take pictures, to post to social media, but we're there. We have an ongoing relationship. And that's been really a poignant, important component of what we do, too, in terms of sustainability. Yeah. Another one I was curious to ask you about is when we've gone, we've usually asked people not to give out trinkets and stickers and because we're trying to save our money to try to have it not be like, oh, the people from North America showed up and they're here to save us.

It's much better. We tell them to bring pictures from home. Well, this is a picture of my family, or this is a picture of something that's important to me. And you do some cultural sharing type stuff. And then if you want to leave something with the organization, whether it be shoes or a cash donation, then it's distributed in a lot more fair manner. Have you found that similar structure in your locations? Yes. And it looks different in every country. I'm really glad, Peter, to hear you say that because the distribution of anything that there is to leave behind is a very sensitive issue and there's dignity to keep in mind.

You know, we work in Cuba. Cuba has, as you probably know, in terms of doctors per capita, they are really at the top of the planet as far as that goes, even though they have so little in terms of material resources. And there are political differences so that because of our embargo, we are not allowed to do anything that will benefit the government, but everything is owned by the government. The official stance on the part of Cubans is that everything would be fine, but for their what they call the blockade, we call the embargo, And so the official stance is we don't need charity.

We don't need anything. So how do you effectively work together? How do you find projects and programs that are going to leave everybody better? How do you find that? And you see how a country like Cuba, how this is going to look different because of that. So we have to culturally keep all of these things in mind in every country. So in Cuba, if you're leaving behind whatever it is, could be a sewing kit to help people repair the clothes they have. That is a gift of friendship. It is not a donation.

And that is an important designation. And this is why we think it's so important to have this guided experience by a local coordinator so that people who might not know these important cultural details and how important it is overall in terms of making sure everybody comes away in a good place, that having somebody from the community who's used to working with overseas volunteers to guide that experience, because it can otherwise leave a bad taste in people's mouths, And I think anybody should try and serve where they go, but it's if you can educate yourself before you go so that it's done more effectively and more sympathetically.

It's better for everyone. We have our own podcast channel and our YouTube channel that includes educational information about this. And sometimes people will go just to see what the toilets look like near the Hill Tribes, Thailand, so that they know what they're likely to get at the project site or what it looked like to fill out a visa to go to Zimbabwe. We try and provide information that somebody might need, even if they're not going with GlobalWare, but they're going to visit or serve. a country so that they know some cultural things before they go.

And so we have, whether it's our website, our orientation materials, any of our social media where we're constantly giving all this stuff out, we found that particularly when groups come, It could be a group of dentists or whatever. We will find that there's always a large percent of participants that haven't looked at any of our preparatory materials. That's why the coordinator begins and tells you what the week's going to be like and tries to give you these important details that someone may or may not have had time to read ahead of time and just remind them so that they are behaving in a way that will benefit and cause joy.

That was super helpful. One of the things I wanted to hit on here for a minute is, so most of the people who listen to this podcast are physicians. And there's people who listen, who are saying, I'm too busy or I'm not a X, Y, and Z specialist. I couldn't have an impact. And I guess that's just been different than what I've found. It seems to me like most people would have an impact and there is a place to serve. So I guess I wanted to hear your thoughts about, so talk to the physician audience here.

You have broad variety of physicians. Some are surgical subspecialists, others are generalists. What are the steps to get involved and who's needed in this work? Really everyone is certainly needed. And one thing I would say is that a lot of people focus on they want to only use their primary skill from home to help someone. And they envision it looking the same way they do it at home. And if they can set that aside, There are so many different ways on our programs where people are giving back that are still going to improve the health of someone.

So for example, we're building an adobe Lorena stove for someone and we're taking a metal pipe and putting it out. We're doing it alongside the family and with local foreman that we have hired. Again, it's a learning situation. They wouldn't have been able to form doing it without our volunteers. participating, and yet it takes almost all of the smoke out of the home, helping the upper respiratory health of this family. And it's taking 80% less fuel to keep that fire going. So it helps with deforestation.

So if someone is super attached to saying, Hey, I'm a heart surgeon and I only want to help, I can do heart surgery in the kind of surgery center that I'm used to. that's going to be harder to find. But if you're willing to say, hey, I'm going to go and use my skills. If you're a dentist, we have clinics that we work with and around where you can jump in, but it's going to look different than the way it is at home. So our programs are scheduled over 4th of July, Thanksgiving, President's Day, MLK, days where people are more likely to have a day off.

and they are done in short-term format so that somebody who's got a busy career as a doctor, if they can't take a few weeks off, we're designed to try and fit within a really busy professional schedule. It's the main space that we fit. It's really overcoming the, am I going to be able to get anything done? A lot of people, if they really have never done this kind of thing, worry, are they going to be fed monkey brains for meals and things like that? Obviously we wouldn't exist if we didn't know how to meet the needs after 25 years of what our volunteers need in order to be happy with their tummies and their safety levels and so on.

So I would say that we've also worked with a lot of medical associations where dental organizations will come and send teams and they will have a process that they want to follow. So we will have these discussions ahead of time with the local community to try and see where can we meet between these are the expectations and the way they want to work. This is what we have in the local community. How do we make these two fit together? So we will often do that ahead of time through Zoom calls to answer all of those questions.

But there are things we can't do. We don't have a surgery center for someone to do brain surgery. We just don't have that. And there are more specialized organizations that will focus only on a certain thing. and we're definitely broader. And so we're a really good fit for people who are willing to let go some of their detailed expectations and are willing to make an impact on someone's health that may not even be whatever they do every day at home. The other follow-up question to that is, when I've organized these kind of trips, my medical staff, like the doctors and nurses, will say, OK, I want, or some of our EMTs, paramedics, they'll be like, oh, yeah, I can bring my medical skills.

But they have family members, friends, church members, community members who say, I want to go, but I don't have a medical skill. And we've found that every single one of those people gets put to work and is usually very busy. And so I guess that's the other follow-up question. groups, do you have places for people without specific clinical training to still find their way to be really helpful in those settings? We have a core project in all 26 of our locations that requires no skills, no language skills, no physical skills.

So for example, when people bring their eight year old daughter or 10 year old son, and we're building a hygiene center or putting in the concrete floor of someone's home. Our coordinator and our foreman and the local families are there pumping the water, carrying it by bucket over to mix the concrete and learning how to do it. And then that eight year old girl, when she comes home, she's seen all the mothers bathing their children in that water they had to pump and carry and

Finding and Joining a Trip 29:28

had to boil the drink. And when she goes back to her room at night is turning the water off in between brushing her teeth because she has this new appreciation for running water and how precious it is in an environment like this. Yes, if there's an EMT or a nurse that is worried, hey, I don't know how I'm going to fit into this equation. That's what we're there for. And again, this is why I go back to it's a learning experience. We don't expect everyone who is coming to serve will know everything they need to know.

They are going to be learning from the moment they get there and really the crux of it, coming ready to serve, but knowing that you are going to be the one who's getting a lot out of this. And the reason I'm hitting that home so much is, again, if this is just about what's going to be efficient, only send money to a community, somebody you trust and say, hey, Jess, let's pay for this. We don't need to be there. The reason what you get out of it when you're there personally for yourself and what it does for the community in terms of feeling these cultural connections, that we cannot put a value on this.

The Brookings Institute did a study back in 2011 or something trying to monetize the value of hard power versus soft power. Having someone in the military in Afghanistan for a couple of years, compared to a Peace Corps volunteer in a community for two years. And at the time it was, the fully loaded cost was like $400,000 a year for that soldier to have that medical care and training and the machine gun and the tanks and all that. And the Peace Corps volunteer is about $16,000. And if we are investing on the front end, what are we getting out of it for that investment?

And they've had a really hard time trying to monetize it. But if the community was looking at Peace Corps volunteers for teaching in their community or coming to help in healthcare realm after a couple of years, how are they feeling about a North American culture? Are they less likely to want to bomb them? and to feel they want to be collaborative with them. And the upshot was that while we certainly need a military, that we were under utilizing our soft power because what happens when we go and serve and show a community that we think they're worth something?

We think they're worth actually looking at with our own eyeballs and sitting down and eating a meal together. What happens out of that is as much value as extracting a tooth for a child. that it's all valuable. So if we can get past the worrying about what exact medical things am I going to accomplish today, if we can look at it more holistically, what comes out of it, I think not only is it more realistic, but the happiness that comes from it is greater. Oh yeah. One other kind of practical piece of it.

The cost varies quite a bit based on how far you're going, what the accommodations are like, what sort of resources you have to come. And I guess I was curious on it for a one week trip. What do you tell people as a ballpark? Cause some people say, I couldn't do that. That's going to cost me $20,000. Never found it to cost that much, but I was curious. What do you tell people as a ballpark? So our programs are on average about $1,500 a week, and that's the accommodations, the food, the materials, the transfers, the getting you to and from the project site, our coordinator, our bottled water, medical insurance, all that.

So we feel like it's fairly affordable. And because it's a contribution toward our work of Charitably What We Do, it is also a tax deduction. And nobody ever does it for that, but it's a nice to have. So that $1,500 is tax deductible. But the airfare is as well if it is only done in conjunction with our program. So if somebody's coming ahead of time or after, they have to talk to their tax advisor. The other piece of this that's really changed is that many employers and medical practices are now allowing contribution matching toward this kind of activity.

So if an employee decides to go on a program like this, the charitable arm of the practice will often contribute $500. And then the volunteer pay is 500. So making it even more affordable. Now that airfare, which we don't cover airfare, no nonprofit is in the business of buying and selling airfare, is an extra cost. And that obviously just depends on where you're going. and what time of year. And it's one of the reasons that we understand that it's really nice to be able to pick when and where you're going because it can be cheaper to go in February and November than it is in July.

So for being able to choose what's going to fit in with your vacation time and your budget, when is it cheaper to fly? Not going to Costa Rica in December and January is expensive. Go in May. You need to talk to somebody about what are the considerations around that. If I go to Machu Picchu and Cusco, Peru in June, is it going to be uncomfortable compared to December? Give us a call. We love talking about that. That's the structure in terms of financially how it works. It doesn't cover things like alcohol and souvenirs and things like that, but otherwise it pretty much covers everything else.

Yeah. That's about what we've found is we tell people somewhere in the 1500 to 2000 range for the week, depending on where we're staying and what we're doing. And then. depending on what your airfare is, sometimes it's $800, sometimes it's $1,500. It depends on where we're going and what time of year. So that's the cost. Sometimes you have to get into the nuts and bolts of it because people are fearful of those unknowns. But you've unpacked a whole bunch of stuff about the importance of this work, the practical considerations of who could go and what you could do, how much it costs, how much time it takes.

And so if you're a physician listening to this, take the opportunity, get a hold of Kimberly Haley Coleman at Global Wear. or look for other opportunities because I think it really does connect us as a globe. And if you're a physician experiencing a little bit of burnout and frustration with your current job, this is a great way to reset and kind of figure out what's important because you're not dealing with the same constructs. Refreshing to go and just do it because it's there to help people and they need help and you can help them.

And it's something that's changed my life and I strongly endorse it. Kimberly, where would you tell people to find more information or get in contact with you? If anywhere Any direction somebody would look with the words globe aware, whether it's so old fashioned to say we have a website, but any of the social media platforms, podcasts, YouTube channel, all the things. Websites easy to start with, but sometimes people just want to see those little video clips on Facebook or Instagram of what that service looks like today in Zimbabwe.

And so we're really in lots of different directions, all under the handle GlobeAware. And we have a phone number too, several different phone numbers, but I feel like we're most likely hearing from people through social media on our website first. Yeah. So people can get ahold of this information on Global Wear. I know you have a LinkedIn profile. There's just opportunities to connect. If you have questions, get ahold of Kimberly, get ahold of me. There's some opportunities to do this kind of connection and it really does make an impact for you personally and for the community you serve.

Kimberly, I want to thank you for your time. Do you have any final comments or anything you want to leave our audience with? Well, Peter, I'm just so grateful that you let me come and chat with you today. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day. Keep in touch. I really am excited about the work you're doing. All right. Thank you, Peter. Thanks for tuning into the Doctors Making a Difference podcast. And thank you for what you do to help your patients and your community.

Your work truly helps so many people. We produce this content to help you have the tools you need to stay in medicine and to highlight the amazing work being done by physicians around the world. Please note that while I am a physician, and many of the guests on this program are also physicians or other professionals, the discussions on this podcast do not represent my employer or any professional organizations to which I belong. This podcast is for your information and entertainment only, and should not be taken as professional advice.

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