MTIMA × CSE: Six Tickets, Fourteen Days, One Big Bet on Hearts
Picture six duffel bags and six passports stacked on a clinic desk. Inside: stethoscopes, pocket guides, a few gifts from home. On the itinerary: 14 days in Malawi. On the line: the kind of learning that changes what happens at a bedside.
In 2025, MTIMA and the Canadian Society of Echocardiography (CSE) will fund six clinicians with $6,000 each to join a focused medical mission in Malawi—teaching, mentoring, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with local teams. Call it a bursary if you like, but it behaves more like a lever: small money, carefully applied, moving far more than its weight.
The dollars matter because the logistics are real. A trans-Atlantic ticket can swallow a budget whole. So the bursary is designed to carry the big rocks—airfare, basic lodging and meals, in-country transport, insurance—so volunteers can carry what counts: time, skills, attention. The work itself is intimate and unglamorous: morning ward rounds that become impromptu workshops; afternoon echo labs where a clean apical four-chamber teaches more than any slide; evening debriefs that turn into tomorrow’s plan.
It’s also cumulative. MTIMA’s prior teaching series in Malawi routinely drew 30+ clinicians per session; a single two-week visit can touch multiple sites, collapsing months of mentoring into days. The math is straightforward and stubborn: clearer scans mean fewer repeats; decisive reports mean faster referrals; faster referrals mean beds freed for the next patient. When minutes add up, clinics breathe.
This is what MTIMA and CSE are buying with $36,000 in direct bursaries: not photo ops, but competence that stays put. The bargain is simple. We pay to move six people. They help move a system—inch by inch, habit by habit—by showing up with humility and leaving behind skills that work on a Tuesday.
Applications open soon. Bring your craft and a willingness to teach what you know and learn what you don’t. You’ll come home with a full notebook and an emptier ego, which is the right exchange rate for this kind of work.
2025 CSE x MTIMA Global Medical Outreach Program
Follow MTIMA for the call for applications and cohort dates. The next story starts with your boarding pass. Visit Canadian Society of Echo Global Impact
By the numbers (2025 cohort)
6 bursaries × $6,000 = $36,000 in direct support
14 days in country per clinician (travel + teaching + clinical service)
Prior MTIMA sessions: 30+ Malawian clinicians per class; multi-site reach over two weeks
Typical bursary coverage (est.): airfare, lodging/meals, in-country transport, insurance, teaching materials