  
 "I got into medicine so I could help people," says Ben, "and I don't know any better way to do that than to go where they really need help. There'll be lots of time to build a practice and get the Mercedes if I decide to do that, but for now I'm spending two years in Central America, where there are no HMO's."
Ben is part of a humanitarian medical program bringing care to some of the remotest parts of the country, and he doesn't get to call home very often. But he and his colleagues wanted a way to stay in a close touch as they could, and they found that Genie was the way.
"As primitive as the back country is down here," Ben explains, "the cities are very modern. Internet Cafés are all over the place and high speed access is more common than good phone lines. With Genie, my family and friends in the States can call my regular number and leave me a message whenever they feel like it, day or night. When we come in to the city from some remote village, we almost always stop at one of the Internet cafés before we go anywhere else. Plug in a laptop and we can listen to our loved ones no matter how long it's been.
"We also move from one country to another every so often, and that presented another challenge - how to handle our money. With the GenieCard, it turned out to not be a problem. The Institute we work for back in the States just sends our pay directly to our GenieCard accounts. Then, whatever city we are in, we can draw local currency from any ATM, without having to worry about huge transfer fees or memorizing the Exchange rates."
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