When I traveled abroad, working with clinics as a medical student, I remember feeling that perhaps the level of that we were delivering was less than what might be done back home. But for every situation we were always able to provide care that was adequate. When the acuity of illness is more pronounced the disparities become glaringly and painfully obvious. The absence of NICU. The inability to perform dialysis. The boundaries of poverty and distance that prevent access to timely care and appropriate diagnostic tests. A fractured healthcare system where past records from half a dozen physician encounters and procedures all across the country are simply not available.
As a physician here, one can feel hamstrung. There is a limit to what can be done. The rest is left to God and prayer. It is difficult to practice medicine in the developing world. How even more difficult it must if one did not have hope in a world after this one.