More harm than good? The questionable ethics of medical volunteering and international student placements

It has been argued that much of international medical volunteering is done for the wrong reasons, in that local people serve as a means to meet volunteers' needs, or for the right reasons but ignorance and ill-preparedness harm the intended beneficiaries, often without volunteers' grasp of the damage caused. The literature on ethical concerns in medical volunteering has grown tremendously over the last years highlighting the need for appropriate...