Profiles of international service: World Wide Med, a communication project developed in partnership with Internal Medicine News, invites U.S.-trained physicians with experience practicing abroad to share their perspectives on medical practice and global health issues. The insights these physicians have gained from practicing in other countries can shed light on the principles of good medical practice, help guide efforts to improve health care throughout the world, and perhaps suggest ways to reform health care in the United States.

New:
Discuss global health at the
World Wide Med Forum.
Track our progress at the
World Wide Med Blog.
To get occasional updates, follow
World Wide Med on

Think globally. Practice locally.

If you're an internist with international medical experience -- whether in private practice in an industrialized nation, in a service project in a developing nation, or working in some other role -- please Share Your Perspective: Tell us how practicing abroad has shaped your view of what it means to be a doctor and what constitutes good health care. Describe what works -- and what doesn't -- in that health care setting. And free free to suggest what might be done to improve the medical system abroad and in the United States.

Suitable reports will be posted here so visitors can Gain Perspective on these issues. Contributors will receive a stipend of US$100 if their comments are selected for use in the World Wide Med column in Internal Medicine News, an independent newspaper that reaches about 120,000 U.S. internists. We'll also highlight Web sites of organizations related to contributors' projects so visitors here can Learn More about their work.

To volunteer as a contributor to this project, or to suggest a U.S.-trained internist with experience practicing abroad who might want to participate, please Share Your Perspective at this site, send us an e-mail, or pass along our URL to a friend or colleague.

Our initial goal with World Wide Med is to let U.S.-trained internists, including internal medicine subspecialists, share their international perspectives. In the future, we may expand this project to include other medical specialties, physicians who were trained abroad and who now practice in the United States, and more.

The idea is to tap into growing awareness of global health issues, appeal to the idealism and sense of adventure of physicians, shed new light on U.S. medical practice in contrast to practice in less-developed nations, and identify positive aspects of health care in other countries that could be emulated in the United States. At a time of increasing globalization of medicine and society in general, we want to support creative thinking about medical practice and health care reform, as seen in an international light.

Call it thinking outside the U.S. box. Let's see where it takes us.

Finally, do keep in touch: You can discuss global health issues by visiting the World Wide Med Forum, track our progress at the World Wide Med Blog, and receive our occasional updates by following World Wide Med on Twitter. And feel free to sent us a note via e-mail.

--Cal Pierce, editor

About the Editor

Cal Pierce, managing editor of Internal Medicine News and Hospitalist News, joined the International Medical News Group in 1984 as a reporter, and was managing editor of Family Practice News from 1995 to 2002. Raised in Portland, Ore., he studied general science at the University of Oregon, Eugene, and earned graduate degrees in science journalism and history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is an avid runner, bicyclist, and environmental advocate.

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