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Medical Missions: Stepping Outside Our Comfort Zones
by Richard Fry, MD
Co-Founder/President
We are again in the blessed season of Easter and Our Lord's Resurrection. Having recently returned from the BTHS Honduras outreach in February, I am reminded that we are called not only to join in the joy of Our Lord's Resurrection, but also to share in the work of spreading His Message to those less fortunate, even when we are outside of our comfort zone. Our Lord gave us the ultimate example of stepping outside our comfort zones through His death on the cross. He gave Himself for our salvation, and we in turn must model this example, even when it means moving into uncharted arenas that challenge our comfort zones.
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| Are you ready to stretch your comfort zone for The Lord? Patients in Honduras need your help. |
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This was the third year that we did a women's health/gynecology outreach that focused on PAP smear screening. This year we added a surgical incontinence outreach as well. The surgical outreach was possible because a colleague of mine, Dr. Steve Kleeman of the Gyn-Urology Division at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, agreed to travel with me to perform procedures on patients that I would screen in advance for him. Mr. Greg Olson, a good friend and fellow parishioner, traveled with Dr. Kleeman and worked both in the hospital and, along with with Dr. Kleeman, at a local orphanage.
Comfort zones were quickly challenged. The week before the outreach, we were notified that the sterilizer at Santa Teresa Hospital, where the surgery was to be done, was broken and the hospital was canceling all non-emergency surgeries. Our in-country contact, Mr. Pedro Contreras, conveyed to the hospital that having a sub-specialty surgeon form the United States coming to the community constituted an "emergency". The hospital made the necessary arrangements, but informed us that all the surgeries would have to be done on a single day rather than the two and a half days that we had planned. Dr. Kleeman's response was confident: "No problem," he said. "We'll do all the cases on Friday."
I traveled down to La Cuesta on Sunday, February 18, and was met by old friends from the community. The journey back to town was easy, and Monday and Tuesday's procedures were uneventful. However, I was feeling guilty because Dr. Kleeman and Mr. Olson were traveling essentially alone for the first time to Honduras and would be met at the airport by people they did not know.
Both Dr. Kleeman and Mr. Olson assured me that they had no fear or concern about this arrangement, since they were engaged in "God's work." Their comfort zones would be stretched again when I introduced them to the accommodations at the clinic Tuesday evening and explained how the cistern and buckets were utilized. They would move to the more comfortable hotel in Comayagua on Wednesday before doing surgery, but they were happy to "rough it for The Lord."
I left Honduras on Wednesday morning for another medical outreach, a mere 12 hours after the arrival of my colleagues. I would not hear of the full extent to which their comfort zones were stretched until we met back in Cincinnati after the mission.
Dr. Kleeman had courageously scheduled eight of the patients that I had screened for surgery, all to be performed on Friday. This was an enormous workload for a single day, and everything needed to proceed perfectly if Dr. Kleeman was to complete all the scheduled cases by the end of the day. However, that morning Dr. Kleeman made an unpleasant discovery: the hospital had no intra-abdominal instruments, retractors, or clamps! All would be needed for the cases he had scheduled.
But instead of canceling all the cases, Dr. Kleeman trusted his experience and training, and did his best with what was available. The cases were concluded safely and the patients did well, although one case needed to be cancelled due to the lack of equipment.
Back in Cincinnati, Dr. Kleeman told me he was sweating like he had never sweat before in surgery. Mr. Olson, who is not a trained medical person, could see that Dr. Kleeman was "dealing with some high stress stuff!" But God was there, guiding and blessing those who had bravely stepped out of their comfort zones to fulfill the mission.
Before I left Comayagua, I had visited a missionary hospital in a different part of the city. This hospital had equipment and infrastructure similar to that found in the United States, but they had no personnel trained to use the equipment. We discovered that that if we were to bring an entire medical team to this missionary hospital, we could use the facility and its modern equipment! Mr. Contreras later escorted Dr. Kleeman and Mr. Olson to this facility, and we all agreed that next time around, this would be the hospital for us.
Dr. Kleeman and Mr. Olson were not dissuaded by their challenge in surgery. Rather, they plan to travel with BTHS every winter to make this outreach an annual event. So much for comfort zones impeding the work of The Lord.
Are you ready to stretch your comfort zone for The Lord? Pray about it and join us if you can. Happy Easter! He is risen!
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