Recorded live at the World Extreme Medicine Conference in 2023, this session explores the long-term, often intangible impacts of humanitarian aid work — not just on the communities served, but on the volunteers themselves.
Ben LaBrot, founder of Floating Doctors and professor at USC, draws on decades of frontline experience and original research to examine how service work transforms the perspectives, behaviours, and professional paths of volunteers — often years after the fact.
This session explores:
-
The concept of “shadow outputs” and the personal transformations that stem from volunteering
-
How short-term service work creates long-term ripple effects in healthcare careers
-
Emerging data on how humanitarian aid changes confidence, empathy, global stewardship and leadership
-
The importance of mentoring, preparation, and post-deployment integration for volunteers
-
How ethical programme design can maximise meaningful change for both communities and clinicians
Whether you’re just starting out or have years of field experience, this talk invites you to reflect on how volunteer work shapes both medicine and the medic — and why those ripples matter, even decades and continents away.