Remote area medical

• Official Site: Remote Area Medical
• University of Virginia: Remote Area Medical Program
• Magnum Photos: Remote Area Medical Mission, Appalachia
• DentalVolunteer: Volunteering Description: Remote Area Medical 2
• Video: Remote Area Medical - Join The Adventure (Time: 4:15)

 

• Mission

  The Remote Area Medical® (RAM) Volunteer Corps is a non-profit, volunteer, airborne relief corps dedicated to serving mankind by providing free health care, dental care, eye care, veterinary services, and technical and educational assistance to people in remote areas of the United States and the world.

  Founded in 1985, Remote Area Medical^® is a publicly supported all-volunteer charitable organization. Volunteer doctors, nurses, pilots, veterinarians and support workers participate in expeditions (at their own expense) in some of the world's most exciting places. Medical supplies, medicines, facilities and vehicles are donated.

RAM History

The vision for Remote Area Medical^® developed in the Amazon rain forest where founder Stan Brock spent 15 years with the Wapishana Indians. He lived with the pain and suffering created by isolation from medical care. He witnessed the near devastation of whole tribes by what would have been simple or minor illnesses to more advanced cultures. When he left South America to co-star in the television series, "Wild Kingdom, " he vowed to find a way to deliver basic medical aid to people in the world's inaccessible regions.

The organization was founded in 1985 and years of research and planning yielded a vast, carefully

developed network of men and women who have come together to make RAM a highly mobile, remarkably efficient relief force. Volunteers are doctors, nurses, technicians, and veterinarians who go on expeditions at their own expense and treat hundreds of patients a day under some of the worst conditions.

 

Volunteers have provided general medical, surgical, eye, dental, and veterinary care to tens of thousands of people and animals, with 60% of the expeditions serving rural America. There are plans for expansion of US expeditions, an airborne medical treatment center, a permanent clinic site in Guyana, and a program start-up in Africa.

And...there are dreams. Dreams for a comprehensive center of operations.Dreams for learning the medicinal secrets of the rain

forest while teaching a continent how -- and why -- to save it. Dreams for a flying hospital. Dreams of a world where people help each other just because they can.

 

 

On March 3 2004, the Senate at the state capitol in Nashville Tennessee passed a resolution honoring Remote Area Medical^® for "Compassion and Dedication to providing medical care." Founder Stan Brock is shown here with Governor Phil Bredesen with the award.

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