Month: March 2020

When you know better, you travel better.

Roslyn Parker is traveltodogood.com‘s CEO/Chief Experiences Officer.

When I first started my company ten years ago my mission was simple….travel and do good   I defined doing good as a single volunteer experience. My company’s role is to facilitate doing good.  As a social entrepreneur my travel change agency serves as a catalyst for me to do my “heart work” and to empower others to travel to do good.

I partnered with non-profit organizations and worked closely with them to identify their needs and how we would volunteer and support them. Volunteers arrived eager to lend a helping hand to a local non-profit.  It seemed like a win win to me. However over time, I realized that doing good was more than just a single volunteer activity. It was a holistic shared learning experience that encompassed so much more.

So after years of doing it half wrong, half right and now mostly right, I am eager to share with others what I have learned on this journey of traveling to do good.  Listed below are 11 ways to travel to do good.

  1. First things first – Travel with an open heart and an open mind.

    This is the foundation of a travel to go good travel experience. Lead with your heart and the rest will follow. Be open and willing to allow the experience to unfold perfectly for you. Leave your desire to judge others or the situation at home. Trusting the process to a willing travel participant in this way will create travel memories to last a lifetime. During my travels, I have met some of the most amazing people in the world. The people I meet when I travel to do good, have become friends for a lifetime. To put it simply, I practice the golden rule, treating others in the way I want to be treated.

  2. Add a volunteer or service project to your trip.

    Whether your travels take you to a domestic or international destination, adding a volunteer project to a vacation, meeting or conference is a great way to make a difference in the lives of others. Volunteer and service learning projects can vary in duration and can include half day, full day, week long or even month long projects. Depending on the needs of the non-profit organization, volunteer projects can focus on education, literacy, health, women’s empowerment, community development, recreation and/or the environment. When volunteering or working with an organization learn as much as you can in advance of your trip. Meet virtually by email, phone or video call. Share information about yourself and be open to learning about others. When volunteering look to your non-profit host to provide guidance. They will have many of their own answers and will look to you for support in a different way.

  3. Be a culturally competent traveler.

    An informed traveler is a more mindful traveler. Before your trip, research and expand your understanding by doing a deeper dive into the history and cultural norms. Cultural competency is the ability to understand and effectively communicate across cultures.

    1. Learn a few local word or phrases in the local language or dialect.
    2. Dress appropriate to local norms and customs.
    3. Show respect for local religious and/or cultural sites.
    4. Exhibit table manners according to local customs.
    5. Ask permission before you take pictures.
  4. Make it less about you.

    When it comes to doing good, you are now in a position of service. Now is the time for patience, flexibility and adjustment if necessary. Leave your ego at the door. Traveling to do good takes humility and the understanding that we are all one.

  5. Take the road less traveled.

    For many developing countries, tourism is a big economic driver. When you spend your tourism dollars, you support the local economy by putting people to work. This is called sustainable tourism and supporting a destination in this way can be the greatest way to give.

  6. Do business with companies who are doing good.

    Understand the underlying business principles and philosophies of the companies you do business with. When you are checking out online reviews what information can be gleamed in terms of their social barometer. Just how socially responsible are they? Does the hotel have a nonprofit or foundation they work with? How are they supporting the local community? What measures do they have in place to protect the environment? Whether it is an international chain or small locally owned hotel, get to know their priorities and how they relate to the community, their employees and to the planet at large.

  7. Pack to do good.

    Make a big impact by making a little space in your suitcase to pack supplies needed by organizations around the world. Check with your trip agent/organizer or group leader, nonprofit partner or hotel concierge for a list of non-profit organizations and needed supplies. Visit packforapurpose.com and learn how you can make a difference in this way.

  8. Shop to do good.

    Put your tourism dollars where they are needed most. Why not buy from a local artisan or crafts person who often have some of the coolest handcrafted items for sale. Supporting a small enterprise while improving the lives of entire communities is empowering on so many levels. I love shopping with local vendors and co-ops because I know that I am supporting local projects that will fuel small businesses and empower a community.

  9. Be mindful of the environment.

    Remember, you want to leave a destination better than you found it. So, don’t forget to pick up after yourself. When you are staying at a hotel, do you really have to change your towels and sheets every day? Many hotels have programs to conserve water and energy which in the long run impacts the community and planet earth in a very positive way. Small actions can make a big impact.

  10. Be an example of the change you want to see in the world.

    Change can occur through one action at a time. Small acts of kindness, compassion and understanding can make major shifts. Demonstrate love, be love. Demonstrate peace, be peace. Demonstrate kindness, be kind. Change your world within the and when you go out into the world, whether you are home or away, change will follow you.

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Tips for choosing a physician or surgeon.

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT SPECIALIST.

In this blog we will talk about the tools you need to select the right physician for you. We’ll start with general questions, inquiries and background information you should check on and know about all your physicians and then subsequently fine-tune some details related to certain specialties.

First for the general information:

  • Verify the physician’s credentials and that they are active, Do a Google and social media search including LinkedIn.
  • Verify that the credentials are universally active, in other words a physician may be working in a different country.
  • Verify that the credentials are universally active, in other words a physician may be working in a different country having had his license revoked in a different country or state.
  • Understand that sometimes physicians may have tainted license, malpractice suits in the past but this does not necessarily indicate that they are not good physicians, so it’s important to learn the details.
  • Find out who will be cross covering for the physician in his or her absence and the details of this position and their capacity.
  • Find out if there are physician extenders such as nurse practitioners or physician assistants that are working alongside the physician and whom you may see. It’s important to understand how often you will be interacting with this person as opposed to the physician.
  • Inquire what the process is to reach the physician specifically as opposed to a physician extender. At this time make it very clear if you are uncomfortable with seeing a physician extender and request only to see the physician – as you are paying for his for her services, they should comply with your wishes.
  • What is the process for caring for you if you have chronic medical conditions and you need medication management – who is going to do this and when will you be meeting this person before your procedure.
  • Ask your physician how many of the requested procedures has he or she performed over what period of time and inquire about the success rate.
  • Ask for references – Ask if you could speak with a former patient if you’re interested – if the physician refuses this should be a red flag.(note that privacy laws apply and the former patient will have to have previously authorized this).
  • Investigate the location (hospital or outpatient facility) where procedures and surgeries will be performed. It’s important to make sure these facilities are adequately credentialed which would indicate they comply with quality expectations amongst other requirements.
  • Ask about his or her position on pain medication prescribing and refill process.
  • Ask if the physician will provide follow-up documentation to your primary physician if you want or will they provide you with a copy of your records.

RED FLAGS

There are some red flags to know about when interviewing a physician for your procedure that you need to be aware of and alter your plans accordingly – meaning you may choose to continue with the physician or change.

  • The physician is not open to any of your questions and refers you to hey website or printed documentation. although this is helpful it is important to have the comfort of being able to speak with your physician and this indicates the amount of time and investment the physician places in the value of a patient physician relationship.
  • There are multiple malpractice lawsuits resulting in culpability of the physician.
  • The physician previously had license revoked in other places – countries or states.
  • The physician has not maintained continuing medical education or current certification.
  • The physician and or staff is not willing to review billing practices.
  • There is no internal medicine physician who will take care of your chronic medical conditions if any medical non-surgical complications should arise.
  • The physician refuses to provide information on 6 of past successful and unsuccessful cases.
  • The physician refuses to provide references or authorize you too speak with other former patience (assuming there is a patient privacy document in place, signed and authorized).
  • There are no provisions for coverage when the physician is unavailable eg. on vacation.
  • There are no subspecialty physicians on staff at the facility where the procedure or care will be provided in the event of complications, these physicians include a lung doctor (pulmonologist),heart doctor (cardiologist), or other specialties as necessary.
  • The facility/hospital where procedures are performed has not met the quality standards in the country requesting. understanding that countries outside of the United States may not qualify for the same quality certifications but there is an equivalent certification that they have indicating they have met quality expectations. (the equivalent to NCQA, JCAHO, JCI, TEMOS for example). It is OK to make decisions based on how a hospital or facility looks to you – use your gut feeling.
  • They refuse to share the infection rate, or they have an unusually high infection rate at the hospital.
  • The position does not allow for provision of pain medication. note that this is a very controversial and sticky area in health care currently, so most practices will have a very stringent, strictly regulated policy for pain medication prescription and refills which you will be required to review and sign or accept – this is OK. However, the physician office stating that they will not prescribe, or refill pain medications is not OK, as these medications may be necessary.
  • There is no post-operative process or procedure in place.
  • Make sure that you understand the pre, intra and post-surgical treatment which may include blood thinners, are there devices to prevent blood clots, therapy – physical or occupational depending on needs.

PLASTIC SURGEON

CARDIOVASCULAR (HEART) SURGEON

  • There is a cardiologist who works alongside the cardiovascular surgeon and they communicate with you to your liking giving you enough time for discussion and questions.
  • There are qualified technicians to provide related services such as echocardiogram, ultrasound, nuclear stress test, regular Bruce protocol stress test.
  • Ensure what expectations should be regarding physical activity after the procedure.
  • What adequate patient information will be provided for you to read and are diagrams provided regarding the anatomy of your heart or vessels and what operation is needed.
  • Adequate preoperative evaluation and postoperative course has been explained to you thoroughly as well as which medicine is to continue and or stop.
  • Is a cardiac rehabilitation program recommended and if so, can they refer one? If one is not readily available, can you be instructed on exercises to do or is there a video provided for this purpose?
  • https://vascular.org/patient-resources/what-vascular-surgeon

ORTHOPEDIC (Bone)  SURGEON

  • Ensure that you like the bedside manner of your physician and staff.
  • Ask questions related to the duration of surgery expected (understand that it is impossible to anticipate exactly). The type of anesthesia to be used and request to meet with the anesthesiologist prior. Find out whether a nurse anesthetist or an anesthesiologist (a physician) Will be attending your case.
  • Find out whether antibiotics will be given before the procedure.
  • Inquire about the post-operative management, specifically related to therapy required and duration.
  • Inquire about expected outcomes, expected recovery time and level of function expected after surgery and therapy and also any potential limitations after surgery.
  • https://www7.aaos.org/member/directory/definition.htm

Solo Female Travelers Shouldn’t Have to Choose Between Being Adventurous and Being Afraid

Article source: By TYLER WETHERALL at https://www.cntraveler.com/

I THOUGHT BEING A FEARLESS FEMALE TRAVELER MEANT I COULDN’T SHOW FEAR.

After I returned from Cuba, friends asked me how it was. Amazing, I said, and I meant it. I told them about the tumbledown houses and rattle of old cars. About dancing on the streets of Baracoa or hitching a ride on the back of an ox cart through the jungle. I also told them I found it hard to travel there as a single woman. And then I told them a story about what happened to me in a cab in Havana.

I have always defined myself as an adventurous female traveler. I first went backpacking at 17 years old around Central America, and I’ve since traveled to nearly 50 countries, often alone. Men have harassed me on the street and followed me home. A hotel owner in Guatemala once let himself into my room at night. I know I am lucky that nothing worse has happened. But the experience in Havana shook me, because I didn’t know how to bridge the gap between being an adventurous—read, fearless—female traveler and being afraid.

I had been in Cuba for over a month. I knew how to navigate the streets of the capital without a map and shout back good-humoredly in Spanish at the men who heckled me. After clubbing with some Cuban friends, I hailed a taxi around 2 a.m. I sat in the front because I get motion sickness and I like to practice Spanish. The taxi driver and I were chatting about life in Cuba, when he told me I was beautiful, and I felt the familiar clench of fear in my gut. I looked out the window. He asked if I wanted to see something, and I already knew he was holding his penis. My first response was to laugh, and then I told him to stop the car. But he didn’t. He started grabbing between my legs with one hand, while masturbating with the other, all—remarkably—without crashing.

I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN BEING AN ADVENTUROUS—READ, FEARLESS—FEMALE TRAVELER AND BEING AFRAID.

When I told my friends this story, I told it like any other travel anecdote, emphasizing the humor in the uncomfortable situations we find ourselves in while on the road. I wanted people to laugh with me, because that would normalize it. I didn’t describe it as sexual assault. If I called it assault, I would have to confront its impact on me.

Instead, I described how the car had no door handles on the inside—common among the tin can cabs of Cuba—so I had to manually open the window, painstakingly slowly, to reach through and open the door from the outside, staving off the taxi driver’s gropes at the same time. I didn’t feel in real danger until the taxi stopped, and suddenly we were on an empty street. He stood on one side of the car, and I, on the other, ready to run. Then he asked me for the $3 fare. I was dumbfounded, but I handed over $5 and waited for my change, because there’s no way I was giving this guy a tip. See how it’s almost funny?

There has been a well-documented rise in female solo travel over the past few years, and I celebrate it. But there is another older story that when women choose to travel alone, they’re placing themselves in danger. Gender violence happens everywhere, but the conversation changes once the experience takes places abroad. When I told people what happened in Cuba, they responded first with alarm, and then with criticism. I should not have been out at night alone. I should not have sat in the front seat.

A recent New York Times article, “Adventurous. Alone. Attacked.,” itemized violence against women traveling abroad over the past four years, including the horrifying killing of Carla Stefaniak by the security guard of her AirBnb in Costa Rica. It is an important piece of journalism, but reading it made me feel uncomfortable, because it perpetuated a narrative that solo travel is too dangerous for women, a narrative I’ve resisted throughout my career. But neither can I deny the reality of traveling alone as a woman. So where is the middle ground?

TRAVEL, LIKE MUCH OF THE REST OF THE WORLD, HAS ALWAYS BEEN DEFINED THROUGH A MALE LENS THAT VALUES BOLDNESS.

We tell stories in order to make sense of the world. I talked about what happened in Cuba because I was trying to make sense of it within my idea of what it means to be a traveler. I grew up on stories of adventure. As a kid, I read Bruce Chatwin, Bill Bryson, and Jack Kerouac. I remember the thrill of discovering Mary Wollstencraft’s 18th-century travel memoir, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. I reveled in her bravery to set off virtually alone (with just her maid and her infant daughter) at a time when it was near unthinkable for a woman to travel without the protection of a man.

I continue to seek out stories of female adventurers, but travel, like much of the rest of the world, has always been defined through a male lens that values boldness. I want to be brave, too. I often hear a voice in my head that says if a man can do it, dammit, so will I. I have hitchhiked at night with defiance, slept outside in a hammock in bandit-infested jungle, and knocked on the doors of private homes looking for a room to sleep when I found myself in a remote coastal village with no hostel. In order to claim the title of adventurer as my own, I have felt obliged to follow in men’s “fearless” footsteps. Perhaps that is why I struggle to make sense of experiences such as what happened to me in Cuba; it is not represented in those stories of adventure.

Media offers us two versions of solo female travel: the inspirational story as it exists on the pages of Eat, Pray, Love; or the story of women like Carla Stefaniak. As long as society’s view of female solo travel is informed by these two narratives, stories like mine, and so many others, don’t have a place in the travel world. And if that’s the case, we need to rewrite the script to recognize that these experiences might happen, but they should not hinder our right to roam the world alone. We need to create our own travel narratives, one in which we might not always be fearless, but we can certainly still be brave.

Q.- Who is the blame when ppl are ill because of socially created vulnerabilities? Is it the individual? Is it an external source ? Or is it the social & political arrangements themselves & those who benefit from them?

You are invited to answer those questions in our comments section.

Medical Missions – not a “one and done” initiative.

Part I

Search the Internet and you will find numerous churches, civic organizations, Charity organizations and schools offering medical mission trips to locations in South America, Central America, Caribbean and Africa to name a few. Many of these organizations are reputable in and of themselves. Some mission trips are surgical in purpose serving a dire need of repairing physical malformations, others serve to provide medical services cognitive and procedural, others serve to build structures. Much funds are often raised to support these ventures and although financials can be requested this is rarely done. There have been many reports of money not spent judiciously or cost effectively, funds not spent for services but to address a more burdensome administrative overhead and possibly even salaries.

Of fundamental importance is the need to have a collaborative arrangement with those the mission is intended to help, specifically the mission must be designed to help the local community in ways that they wish to be assisted and they must be a part of the mission. It’s important to be educated and understand the importance of cultural competence and cultural awareness as well as to be cognizant of the importance of the political arena, geographic position, religious and anthropologic history behind the culture and people of the mission.

As with any population health management project or collaborative effort, the following considerations must always be included during reviewer validity of a program. Consideration must be made for economic stability, neighborhood and physical environment, educational level, food/hunger, community and social context and the established health care system if any.

Specifically when considering economic stability one must investigate opportunities for employment, income and any other expenses; when considering neighborhood and physical environment consideration must be made for housing, transportation, safety, playground and parks and walkability; when considering education, literacy and language , vocational training or higher education must be considered; when considering food one must look into hunger and access to healthy options; for community and social context the consideration of support systems, community engagement, discrimination and social integration are important and lastly the health care system that is in place and the coverage, provider availability and access, quality of care and also linguistic and cultural competency of the providers in the system.

The strategy to accomplish a successful structure, organization and management of a medical mission whether volunteering or creating should ensure that these tenets serve as the filter through which a program is built. It is imperative to appreciate that the constructs have a medical mission should be self-sustainable. This means that the local citizens of the region should be educated and taught how to incorporate the new information and or experiences or resources provided to enhance their current existence in a manner desirable to them and sustainable by them. However, the visitors overseeing the medical mission or volunteering within the medical mission should also include as part of their sustainability strategy a plan to return periodically to the mission location to provide continued services or resources as needed.

Subscribe to our blog to receive Part II & Part III with tips on structuring your medical mission.