Founded by Johns Hopkins alumni, International Medical Aid works with pre-health students across multiple disciplines, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, mental health and physical therapy, to provide experiences that will further your preparation for medical school and graduate healthcare programs. IMA partners with leading academic institutions in the United States, Canada, and Europe to facilitate study abroad trips and internship opportunities. Our healthcare internship programs provide pre-health students hands-on experience through intensive clinical shadowing, service learning, didactic experiences, and expert admissions support. Combined, these elements build the foundation that medical and related healthcare programs are looking for in applicants. International Medical Aid works with underserved communities in East Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. We bring healthcare where it otherwise might not go, improving lives and providing valuable shadowing experiences to pre-health students. We focus our efforts in areas where there is the greatest need. Our programs impact the lives of everyone involved--patients, providers and students. Early exposure to these settings is critical for students who might not otherwise consider providing medicine to rural communities. Plus, opportunities like this are once-in-a-lifetime and will provide content for your medical school essays and a competitive edge for some of the best medical programs in the country. You'll also form lifelong friendships and connections that can prove vital to your long-term success in the medical field. IMA also partners with local communities and professionals to develop grass-roots initiatives that are led by individuals in the community. Through local engagement, IMA helps improve the quality of the healthcare that is provided to specific regions. Our Global Health Lecture Series helps pre-med students understand the differences that run throughout the healthcare system and affect how treatments are delivered to patients. Our Clinical Simulation Sessions teach interns basic healthcare through simulated experiences. Interns practice suturing, drawing blood, managing airways, and injecting medications on mannequins. Normally, this kind of experience doesn't come until much later during a medical student's education. Finally, our Community Outreach Program educates and gives resources to members of the community, allowing individuals to take better control of their health. This includes field medical clinics and hygiene education sessions that cover topics like hand and oral hygiene. Providing medicine to remote areas and underserved communities has allowed IMA, our doctors, and our pre-health students to make an impact in the lives of individuals who need medical treatment or who need to improve their health through simple measures. You'll have first-hand experiences with conditions that most doctors don't get to treat in remote areas. You'll work in settings where instruments need to be sterilized before surgery. Having experience in the developing world will prepare you for a career in medicine like nothing else. Getting into medical school is a difficult and complex process. You're competing with other highly qualified candidates who have the same dreams you do. Displaying your passion for science through working with IMA will prove just how much you love medicine. While EMTs, nurse's aids and ER techs gain valuable experience that will help them in medical school, IMA interns get more. Remote medicine stretches you and allows you to grow in ways you wouldn't otherwise experience. What if a clinic runs out of a life-saving medicine before treatment has been completed? What if the right tests can't be run to confirm a suspected diagnosis? These are issues that medical doctors face on a daily basis. Your unique experiences will put you in a very small group of applicants that stand out to medical schools and other graduate healthcare programs. Our alumni have been accepted to programs at Harvard University, Stanford University, UCSF, and the Mayo Clinic. So, are you looking for a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime experience shadowing doctors in remote areas of the world? Consider going on an internship with International Medical Aid.
