| What are the jobs that you do when you visit the Dominican Republic? |
"I personally operate on patients as a general surgeon doing all sorts of surgeries from hernias, gall bladders, thyroid surgeries, some hysterectomies. The majority of the operations are hernias."
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| What time of the year do you visit the Dominican Republic? |
"I've been going either in the fall, the last week of September, first week of October, or early February."
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| Do you think the world is aware of the problems that the people in the Dominican Republic face, such as the diseases and conditions? |
"I think a lot of other third world countries are aware.."
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| Is the United States aware of the problems around the world? |
"I do not think that the United States is. I think in the United States there is a tendency to over look the ills of other countries."
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| Who goes with you on these trips? |
"We have a group of people; generally, we have anywhere from 15 to 30 people. On the most recent mission that we did, we had 29 people made up of five other physicians, surgeons, ear-nose-and-throat specialists, gynecologists, two emergency room physicians, and a cardiologist at the medical clinic."
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| What was your first impression when you went these trips? |
"When I went to Haiti for the first time, I was overwhelmed by two things. One was the poverty of the country. Haiti is probably one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. And the second thing I was overwhelmed with was the odor in the capital."
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| You just said that you have visited Haiti, how many times did you go back and work there? |
"I went to Haiti from 1980-1984. Then in 1984, which was the last trip I went on to there, we were having some problems with the security people, and did not think it was safe to go there anymore."
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| How many people come to the clinic you have set up down there while you are visiting? How many patients do you have? |
"It would vary, but generally, as the surgeons, we would do 80-100 cases over four to five days. And they would see about a thousand at the clinic."
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| When you go, what precautions do you have to take? |
"It varies on where we go and when we go. When we went to Haiti, we were concerned about malaria and would take prophylaxis to prevent malaria. And when we were going to some of the places in the Dominican Republic, we also in some places had to be concerned about malaria; so again you had the protection through prophylaxis. The other thing you had to do was watch out what you ate, but more what you would drink, and where you would get the drink because the water is not purified."
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| Do you have any interesting stories? |
"In terms of memorable experiences, one time about six years ago in the Dominican Republic we were in a town called Barahona, which is near the Haitian border. We were just finishing up, and one of the doctors from the emergency room came up and said that he had a patient with a severe abdominal pain, and that he wanted to take care of it. We had almost no supplies left and saw this lady who had a strangulated hernia in her bellybutton. That means she had a piece of bowel that got stuck in the hernia in the bellybutton; and we had nothing but local anesthesia and a little sedation. We ended numbing that area up, gave her some sedation, fixed her hernia, and kept her over night. The next day she and her family brought us food. She was so happy that we had taken away her pain."
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| Why do you go on these medical missions? |
"[They] allow me to practice medicine without all the worries and regulations. Also, it gives me the opportunity to provide care to a few people. I am reasonable enough to know that I can't make a difference for everyone, but I can make a difference in all of my skills. I can't solve all the problems that the country has, but I can help a few people so they can have a more useful life, or feel better about themselves with the problems they have."
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