Making a difference overseas

Local surgeons volunteer vacation time

By KIMBERLY M. WEYANDT

MONTICELLO, NY — Most people who are getting ready to go on vacation pack their bags with their favorite clothes, comfortable shoes and a swimsuit, but when Michael Sherwood and Ellen Herfield go on vacation they have little room for these things.

Sherwood, a CRNA, and Ellen Herfield, RN, CNOR, are both employed by Catskill Regional Medical Center and members of the International Surgical Mission Support (ISMS) organization.

ISMS is a not-for-profit organization made up of doctors who use their vacation time to volunteer their medical expertise in underprivileged countries. The team includes a general surgeon, a plastic surgeon, a thoracic/general surgeon, an obsetetician-gynecologist, an ICU/Pulmonary physician, operating room nurses, nurse anesthetists and a critical care nurse. They have all of the necessary equipment and capabilities to set up a fully functional operating room anywhere in the world.

“I always wanted to do volunteer work and it sounded like fun,” said Herfield.

“I should probably do more volunteer work [in the U.S.] and at some point I will, but poor people here are not like poor people there… when you’re poor in these countries, you’re poor: you’re living in a hut that you built and digging up the ground to eat… there isn’t any agency to go to because the country is poor.”

Volunteers pack light, filling their suitcase with medical supplies instead of clothing. They give away everything they bring. After arriving in the country they spend the first day reviewing the cases.

“Then we work 10- to 12-hour days, averaging about 105 cases in 5 days,” said Sherwood.

The operations they perform are free to patients who come with their families and sleep under the cots in the hospital. The doctors spend their time working and teaching local doctors how to perform the procedures. They claim to learn as much as they teach.

“You have to learn how to improvise there,” said Herfield.

“We [in the U.S.] seem to overdo everything; they teach us how to do more with less,” said Sherwood.

One of Herfield’s most memorable cases was the help they provided a woman in Brazil who had a large cyst on her hip.

“Imagine a basketball in a sling attached to your hip,” she said.

The surgery was difficult because of the huge blood supply going to the cyst and no way to get more blood if needed.

“We removed it and the next day her whole family came and bought her a dress,” said Herfield.

“In Brazil, they love to dance and she hadn’t been able to dance in 10 years. They talked about going dancing again,” she said, “It was very touching and her life was changed drastically.”

The organization has treated hundreds of patients in Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Vietnam, Nepal and Nigeria. They are currently raising funds for their upcoming trip to Nicaragua.

“After working in one of these countries, I feel grateful for the experience and for what I have here,” said Herfield.

“And you feel good because, being American, you really are like ambassadors to the country,” said Sherwood, “It’s a good feeling: helping people and sharing what you know.”

For more information about International Surgical Mission Support, visit ismission.org.