“We will get to…assist the staff of the hospital”: comparatively exploring the motivations of pre-medical and medical students from Global North countries for seeking to participate in Ghanaian medical missions

Global medical missions deliver essential health care services to equity-seeking communities, and particularly in the Global South. While medical missions can improve access to care, they also raise ethical concerns, such as reinforcing dependencies on Global North countries and undermining local health systems. Many medical missions are heavily reliant on volunteers from Global North countries. A well-studied volunteer group are medical students, with some studies raising questions about their readiness to support care delivery in such contexts. As less well considered group are pre-medical students enrolled at colleges and universities in Global North countries who do not yet have any formal medical training. This study comparatively explored the motivations of medical and pre-medical students from the Global North seeking to participate in medical mission trips to Ghana. We analyzed 100 publicly available crowdfunding campaign narratives from the GoFundMe platform. Campaigns posted between 2018 and 2023 were first identified through a structured search using terms related to medical missions and Ghana, and those meeting predefined inclusion criteria were retained. After identifying 147 eligible campaigns, we manually screened all pages and then randomly selected (n = 50) medical student and (n = 50) pre-medical student campaigns to ensure equal representation. Comparative thematic analysis was employed to identify and compare motivations between medical and pre-medical students. Both medical and pre-medical students were motivated to participate by a blend of factors that included a desire to make a positive impact in Ghanaian communities. Pre-medical students were particularly motivated by the prospect of enhancing their medical school applications, while medical students aimed to meet medical school course requirements and gain practical clinical experience. Pre-medical students expressed greater interest in participating in social or development projects while in Ghana in addition to delivering health care and were more likely to express religious motivations than were medical students. The findings raise important ethical and equity concerns for medical mission host countries such as Ghana, such as the appropriateness of the scope of practice for pre-medical students in particular, the quality and sustainability of care and the inclusion of faith-based activities. The analysis points out that understanding the diverse motivations of both medical and pre-medical students from the Global North can support more ethical and effective medical mission practices, including informing guidelines for volunteers and the different pathways for their communication between these groups.