Educational debt has become an ever-larger fact-of‑life for physicians and dentists emerging from their professional training programs. The size of their debt is influencing students and residents in their choice of specialty and the geographic location of practice. Debt is also a deterrent to those who might wish to volunteer their services for several years following residency to mission boards, service agencies (especially Mennonite Central Committee) or other Christian medical outreach enterprises. A number of our members have given such periods of service in past years, especially when the service was an alternative to the military draft. Those who have given such voluntary service generally affirm the experience very highly and regard it as mutually beneficial to the church's outreach and the individual's spiritual growth. Fewer have volunteered in recent years; educational debt is one factor.

Growing out of the experience of past volunteers, Mennonite Medical Association has always paid deliberate attention to overseas mission and service needs and opportunities. Our Student Elective Term program is one of the outgrowths of that interest. SET is directed toward students or residents interested in an overseas elective during their training years. The Steven Roth Fund further extends MMA's support to those emerging from completion of their residency programs. The Fund is designed to pay the interest on educational debt for a qualified MMA member candidate for medical voluntary service during the years of such continuous service. In this way MMA both encourages and enables medical voluntary service. The program has already generated the interest and support of the MMA membership in much the same way that the SET program has.  Members are encouraged to contribute to this and the other funds listed, in amounts above annual dues.