Q: I’m just beginning university and I’m interested in healthcare. Do you recommend I become a physician, nurse, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant?

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A: Spend a few days with a MD and a RN to compare.

Answer from Lori, a RN who serves in Zimbabwe at Chidamoyo Christian Hospital.
The best thing you can do is pray for God's direction for you. Then follow each one of these positions for a couple of days and see how each practices in day to day life. Between the RN and the MD there are huge differences besides schooling. While some Physician's Assistants practice overseas, from what I have found they are much more limited as many countries do not recognize the degree. If you go into nursing go for the BSN (bachelor of science in nursing), many countries will not license you for full-time service because the ADN (associate degree in nursing) omits community health education.

A: I recommend nurse practitioner.

Answer from David, an physician internist who has served for eight years in Honduras and coordinates the medical aspects of several community development groups.
Being a nurse practitioner will give you several advantages. You will see patients and also be able to be involved in medical care in the U.S. should you later return. MDs are, more and more, in supervisory roles, so they actually see patients less and less.

Beware that physician’s assistants have a difficult time convincing foreign governments that they were properly trained since most overseas health systems are not familiar with that degree.

Despite the fact that we American doctors are trained to "feel insecure" and always want to take "one more course or fellowship," American doctors are very over trained. I loved ICU work as a young physician. But, much more quickly than I thought, I gravitated to outpatient office medicine and I was very happy. And I did not need to know "everything" like I had felt that I needed to when doing "hospital medicine."

A: All (except physician assistant) are recognized and needed.

Answer from Harold Adolph MD who served in three Ethiopian hospitals over 30 years performing more than 25,000 operations
There are needs overseas for physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners. The idea of physician assistant hasn't caught on. Specialist doctors, nurse instructors, and nurses for outlying clinics are still valuable. The needs outside the big cities are enormous and actually greater than in the days of the first missionary doctors.

A: It depends.

Answer from Cynthia Hale, MD, MPH. Cynthia and her physician husband Tom served in Nepal under the United Mission to Nepal. For their first twelve years in Nepal they served in a remote rural mission hospital where Tom served as both surgeon and medical director, and Cynthia served as pediatrician and family physician.
Your decision depends on several factors in addition to prayer and seeking God's mind on it:
1. Assess how well you are doing in university and how much you enjoy studying.
2. Pray about where in the world God might be leading you to serve, and find out which category of worker is most needed and can most readily get a visa.
3. Assess your desire to work under someone else versus being in charge.
4. Consider how much hands-on medical or nursing care you would like to give.

A: I recommend being a physician, nurse or nurse practitioner.

Answer from Donn, a General Surgeon MD who retired from ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) after 26 years in Bangladesh
I strongly recommend being a physician, nurse or nurse practitioner. There are many countries who have no idea at all of what a Physicians Assistant might be. If you contemplate being in a hospital with surgical facilities and if you contemplate ever being there alone, by all means be a physician with surgical training.