For 35 years, MedSend has worked to expand global healthcare missions by helping healthcare professionals serve where medical care is limited and the hope of Christ is deeply needed.
What began as a ministry focused on helping U.S. healthcare professionals overcome educational debt has grown into a broader vision that now supports healthcare workers, physician training programs, missionary well-being, and national physician leaders across Africa and Asia.
Today, MedSend describes this work as Two Paths, One Vision.
The vision is simple: increase access to compassionate healthcare while expanding opportunities for Christian witness through healthcare professionals serving around the world.
A Growing Global Need
According to the World Health Organization, the developing world faces a shortage of millions of healthcare professionals.
The need continues to grow.
Communities around the world need physicians, surgeons, family medicine doctors, nurses, and healthcare leaders who can provide quality care while building trusted relationships with patients and families.
MedSend’s response is not centered on a single program or profession.
Instead, it focuses on creating pathways that help healthcare professionals serve sooner, remain longer, and multiply their impact through training others.
Two Paths, One Vision
MedSend’s work is organized around two complementary pathways.
Path One: U.S. Healthcare Professionals
The first path supports healthcare professionals from the United States who feel called to missionary service.
For decades, educational debt prevented many physicians from serving internationally until years after completing their training.
MedSend helps remove that obstacle through MedSend to the World, allowing healthcare professionals to enter the field sooner and remain there longer.
But over time, MedSend recognized another challenge.
Healthcare missionaries often faced exhaustion, isolation, and significant stress.
That realization led to The Longevity Project, which provides counseling, spiritual direction, retreats, wellness resources, and other support designed to care for healthcare missionaries and their families.
The goal is simple: support the people who are caring for others.
Path Two: Christian National Physicians
The second path focuses on Christian physicians serving their own communities across Africa and Asia.
More than a decade ago, MedSend began supporting Christ-centered residency training programs through what is now known as the National Scholars Program.
These scholarships help physicians receive advanced medical training while preparing them to serve communities facing significant healthcare challenges.
The impact extends far beyond individual patients.
Many graduates become teachers, mentors, and leaders who help train the next generation of physicians.
As CEO Rick Allen explained during our recent Fiscal Year End presentation with donors, some graduates serve in clinics, others in outpatient facilities, some in inpatient hospitals, and many in teaching hospitals where their influence multiplies through future healthcare providers.
Where National Scholars Serve
National Scholars often serve in one of four environments:
- Community clinics
- Outpatient hospitals
- Inpatient hospitals
- Teaching hospitals
Each setting provides unique opportunities to deliver compassionate care and expand access to healthcare.
Teaching hospitals create particularly significant opportunities because physicians can train future healthcare leaders while continuing to care for patients.
This multiplication effect is one reason MedSend believes investing in physician training creates long-term impact.
The Launch Project: Helping Physicians Answer the Call
As more National Scholars graduated from residency programs, another challenge emerged.
Many physicians felt called to serve in areas of high need, but the hospitals and clinics where they wanted to serve could not afford to hire them.
The need for physicians was clear, but the financial resources often were not.
To address that challenge, MedSend launched the Launch Project.
The Launch Project provides a three-year salary supplement that helps National Scholar graduates enter missionary service while reducing financial risk for hospitals and healthcare facilities.
These physicians serve through mission-sending organizations and are, in every sense, medical missionaries serving their own people.
Caring for Healthcare Missionaries for the Long Term
The future of global healthcare missions is not only about sending and training healthcare professionals.
It is also about helping them remain healthy and resilient over time.
The Longevity Project continues to expand as MedSend seeks to support more missionary households around the world.
The ministry is also exploring ways to extend well-being resources to National Scholar graduates serving in difficult regions and to mental health professionals who care for missionaries.
These efforts reflect a growing conviction that healthcare missions is strongest when the people doing the work are well cared for.
A Unique Role in Global Healthcare Missions
One of MedSend’s most unique contributions extends beyond its grant programs.
For more than a decade, MedSend has convened leaders from mission-sending organizations, healthcare ministries, and member care teams.
Today, those efforts include:
- Global healthcare mission leaders
- Member care leaders
- Sending agency CEOs and executive directors
The goal is collaboration.
Leaders share challenges, discuss emerging opportunities, strengthen relationships, and work together to address issues facing global healthcare missions.
As Rick Allen noted, many of these leaders had never been in the same room together before MedSend created opportunities for them to connect.
A Return on Mission
Near the end of the donor presentation, longtime MedSend supporter Craig Johnson reflected on the ministry’s impact.
After traveling extensively and observing ministries around the world, he offered this perspective:
“I can’t think of anything on the planet where there’s a better return on investment, even better than Bitcoin, even better than Amazon at $3 a share.”
He was referring to the opportunity to help train physicians who will serve patients, strengthen healthcare systems, and influence future generations of healthcare leaders.
That idea echoes throughout MedSend’s vision.
The ministry is not simply supporting healthcare professionals.
It is investing in people who will care for millions of patients, train future physicians, and bring compassionate care into communities around the world.
Looking Ahead
As MedSend looks toward the future, the goal remains clear:
Expand access to compassionate healthcare.
Support healthcare professionals called to serve.
Train physician leaders.
Care for healthcare missionaries and their families.
Strengthen partnerships across the global healthcare missions community.
Together, these efforts create opportunities for both healing and Gospel witness in places where they are needed most.
For MedSend, that is what Two Paths, One Vision looks like.
Learn More
Want to learn more about how MedSend is expanding global healthcare missions through healthcare professionals, National Scholars, and missionary support programs?
Explore MedSend’s programs and discover how you can be part of bringing healing and hope to communities around the world.
