Four years of medical school at the University of Rochester and five years of surgical residency in Hawaii pale in comparison to the education I have received doing short term mission trips to places that look like those from the pages of National Geographic.
My first exposure to medicine in the Third World was in rural El Salvador with Operation Blessing. I was on the first mission trip of a flying hospital #- a L1011 wide-bodied jet complete with operating room suites, recovery room, clinic space and the latest in monitoring capability. There was only one problem #- a very large jet can't get to the rural mountainous areas where the needs are the greatest.
So, from the best of transportation to a rickety bus, I was part of a team working in a small village hospital with open windows in the operating rooms (i.e. flying insects and the occasional bird), sporadic electricity, non-functioning toilets and an endless stream of patients. My first case was a perforated appendix. I knew I was in trouble when I asked for a drain and received a very used Foley catheter. (They said it had been washed.)
I learned quickly to adapt, improvise and be thankful for what few supplies were on hand ... that used Foley was better than nothing, and nothing was too often the case.
Our travels have taken us to western Kenya, where I learned to do orthopedic procedures from a surgical tech with a sixth-grade education. Now, that is a humbling experience for a surgeon. Yet he got me through my own moments of panic when I did not even know what instruments to use. My first night in the African operating room with jet lag still hanging over me, I opened an abdomen only to find a bowel obstruction secondary to tape worms. The OR team, who had never met a white woman surgeon in the first place, thought it was hilarious as I gasped at the hundreds of moving objects we encountered.
Papua New Guinea is half a world away, not only in distance, but also in their medicine and culture. It was astonishing to see large numbers of women who could not get any medical care without the permission of their husbands, men who tended to take their wives to tribal healers if they sought care at all. Women in that country are less valued than pigs. Ectopic pregnancy is rampant as the non-Christian men are polygamous and even those converted to Christianity had a past history of enjoying many women. Where no surgeon is available (and that is many areas), ectopics mean death to otherwise healthy young women.
Working in Panama and rural Jamaica left us realizing how much we take for granted in our country. Children with scabies, scurvy, lice and all kinds of intestinal parasites were just the norm. In Panama, we worked in village clinics that had a roof, a floor, or walls, but never all three in the same location. I never got through a clinic without a few chickens and dogs wandering through, to say nothing of the roaches and other creeping crawling clinic dwellers. Vitamins and Tylenol were sometimes all we could offer patients who needed so much care. A place called the poor house in Jamaica, home to those whose families had rejected them because of their medical needs, showed us a great lesson in how people we might consider hopeless learned to help each other.
Yet in the midst of poverty and lack of health care, we found the most gracious and grateful people. No one ever complained about waiting to see the doctor, and some of these patients waited hours and even days standing in line in the hot sun. There were no jokes about hospital food - there is none. (If a patient gets a meal, it is because their family is providing it.) You don't need any malpractice insurance as people don't sue doctors. Patients say thank you, give you gifts when they have nothing themselves, and hugs and smiles are the best payment.
Our family has prospered by first-hand medical experience overseas. We appreciate much more what we have here and what is really important in our own lives. So many opportunities exist for doctors and their families to move outside their comfort zones (literally and figuratively), give much needed care, minister in many ways and truly enrich their own lives by serving others.
It is really true - these experiences enhance your life and change you to an extent much greater than what you give to those who need your help so desperately.
Dr. Deborah Geer is a general
surgeon with a special interest
in breast surgery. Reach her
at 253-4536
So, from the best of transportation to a rickety bus, I was part of a team working in a small village hospital with open windows in the operating rooms (i.e. flying insects and the occasional bird), sporadic electricity, non-functioning toilets and an endless stream of patients. My first case was a perforated appendix. I knew I was in trouble when I asked for a drain and received a very used Foley catheter. (They said it had been washed.)
I learned quickly to adapt, improvise and be thankful for what few supplies were on hand ... that used Foley was better than nothing, and nothing was too often the case.
Our travels have taken us to western Kenya, where I learned to do orthopedic procedures from a surgical tech with a sixth-grade education. Now, that is a humbling experience for a surgeon. Yet he got me through my own moments of panic when I did not even know what instruments to use. My first night in the African operating room with jet lag still hanging over me, I opened an abdomen only to find a bowel obstruction secondary to tape worms. The OR team, who had never met a white woman surgeon in the first place, thought it was hilarious as I gasped at the hundreds of moving objects we encountered.
Papua New Guinea is half a world away, not only in distance, but also in their medicine and culture. It was astonishing to see large numbers of women who could not get any medical care without the permission of their husbands, men who tended to take their wives to tribal healers if they sought care at all. Women in that country are less valued than pigs. Ectopic pregnancy is rampant as the non-Christian men are polygamous and even those converted to Christianity had a past history of enjoying many women. Where no surgeon is available (and that is many areas), ectopics mean death to otherwise healthy young women.
Working in Panama and rural Jamaica left us realizing how much we take for granted in our country. Children with scabies, scurvy, lice and all kinds of intestinal parasites were just the norm. In Panama, we worked in village clinics that had a roof, a floor, or walls, but never all three in the same location. I never got through a clinic without a few chickens and dogs wandering through, to say nothing of the roaches and other creeping crawling clinic dwellers. Vitamins and Tylenol were sometimes all we could offer patients who needed so much care. A place called the poor house in Jamaica, home to those whose families had rejected them because of their medical needs, showed us a great lesson in how people we might consider hopeless learned to help each other.
Yet in the midst of poverty and lack of health care, we found the most gracious and grateful people. No one ever complained about waiting to see the doctor, and some of these patients waited hours and even days standing in line in the hot sun. There were no jokes about hospital food - there is none. (If a patient gets a meal, it is because their family is providing it.) You don't need any malpractice insurance as people don't sue doctors. Patients say thank you, give you gifts when they have nothing themselves, and hugs and smiles are the best payment.
Our family has prospered by first-hand medical experience overseas. We appreciate much more what we have here and what is really important in our own lives. So many opportunities exist for doctors and their families to move outside their comfort zones (literally and figuratively), give much needed care, minister in many ways and truly enrich their own lives by serving others.
It is really true - these experiences enhance your life and change you to an extent much greater than what you give to those who need your help so desperately.
Dr. Deborah Geer is a general
surgeon with a special interest
in breast surgery. Reach her
at 253-4536
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