Volunteer Surgeon

By Warren DeKraay

Dr. DeKraay's book summarizes the experiences obtained during his years serving as a volunteer surgeon in 3rd world countries. The book will be most appreciated by people with an interest in mission activities around the world, especially medical missionary work. Dr. Dekraay's stories of the patients, the hospitals where he worked, and the dedicated people who staff the hospitals was informative and enlightening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452056609

Warren DeKraay

Dr. DeKraay received his M.D. degree from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1955. After serving two years in the U.S. Air Force in Newfoundland, Dr. DeKraay completed his general surgical residency in Iowa City Veterans Hospital and the University of Iowa Hospitals. From 1962 to 1979 Dr. DeKraay practiced as a general surgeon in Ottumwa, Iowa. From 1979 to 1981 he served a thoracic surgical residency at Charlotte Memorial Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. From 1981 to 2000 Dr. DeKraay maintained a thoracic and vascular surgical practice in Racine, Wisconsin and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Dr. DeKraay has been married to his wife, Nancy, for 52 years and has five children.

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© 2010 Warren DeKraay. M.D.. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/30/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-5659-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-5660-9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010910548

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Dominican Republic—1978

Guatemala—1996

Nepal—1997

New Guinea Visit—1999

New Guinea, Sepik River—1999

Malawi, Africa—2000

Ecuador—2001

Gorby Peru–2001

China—2001

Cameroon, Africa—2002

Togo, Africa—2002

Togo Episode—2002

Zambia—2003

Gabon, Africa—2004

Gabon—2004

Ethiopia—2005

Ethiopia Fistula Hospital—2005

Iquitos, Peru—2005

Congo—2006

Bulape, Congo—2006

Chad, Africa Journal - January 29, 2007

Bolivia Journal—2007

Bolivia—2007

Kenya Journal—2008

Sadness In Kenya—2008

Aids In Africa

Malaria

Neurological Problems in

Developing Countries

Recollections

Epilogue

Short Stories

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the following for their help in preparing this book:

Nancy DeKraay for editing, typing and moral support.

Mike Holmes for editing.

Peggy Haskin of Clerical Services Unlimited for typing services.

Background

Dr. DeKraay received his M.D. degree from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1955.

After serving two years in the U.S. Air Force in Newfoundland, Dr. DeKraay completed his general surgical residency in Iowa City Veterans Hospital and the University of Iowa Hospitals.

From 1962 to 1979 Dr. DeKraay practiced as a general surgeon in Ottumwa, Iowa.

From 1979 to 1981 he served a thoracic surgical residency at Charlotte Memorial Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina.

From 1981 to 2000 Dr. DeKraay maintained a thoracic and vascular surgical practice in Racine, Wisconsin and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Dr. DeKraay has been married to his wife, Nancy, for 52 years and has five children.

Introduction

In 1978, when my daughter and I went on our first medical mission trip, my motivating factor was to provide surgery for patients in underdeveloped countries. During the past several trips working with various mission groups and missionaries, my sense of being useful in providing surgical care to patients has been accompanied by a certain amount of guilt. One day, while I was presenting a program to congregants in our church, a girl asked me why I did mission work. Before I could even think I answered, A sense of guilt. Perhaps guilt is a subconscious factor in my missionary effort; but at the same time, I know that I have also been driven by a desire to use my medical skills to help people who live where surgical care is not always available.

There are several reasons one can give to justify mission trips: a belief in fulfilling one’s Christian ideals, an attempt to motivate others to participate in mission work, a sense of adventure, or a yearning to live and learn in a different culture. Each person must search his or her soul for reasons to pursue mission activities.

Since 1996 I have worked with twelve different organizations, both secular and religious, that provide organized medical care in developing countries. All of these organizations have extremely dedicated personnel who have spent their lives working in stressful environments, but who find their work satisfying and fulfilling. I asked one surgeon who was a long-time missionary how he expected to retire. He said, The Lord will provide.

Of the sixteen medical mission trips in which I have been involved, three were organized by Medical Ministry International (MMI), three by the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and the remaining trips were under the auspices of a variety of organizations. World Medical Mission, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse located in Asheville, North Carolina, and under the guidance of Franklin Graham, has been a good source of information regarding assignments for volunteer medical personnel.

This book is divided into two sections. The first section involves my personal experiences as a volunteer surgeon in developing countries throughout the world. The second section contains short stories I wrote during the long evenings I spent in far-off countries, when I was not working in the missionary hospitals.

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Dominican Republic—1978

In July, 1978, I was a general surgeon in Ottumwa, Iowa. I had begun investigating opportunities to work as a volunteer surgeon in developing countries, and learned about a group called Medical Ministries International (MMI). MMI sponsored family-based medical mission trips to the Caribbean and South America.

My daughter, Elizabeth, was seventeen years old and beginning her last year in high school. She had always been an inquisitive student. During her junior year in school, she and I undertook a project to study the role of infection and the thymus gland, using white rats as our subjects. Unfortunately, every time we tried to anesthetize the rats, they died, thus ending our study project. When she heard me talking about the possibility of a medical mission trip, she asked if she could go. I was pleased that she was interested in traveling with me, so we made plans to join MMI on a medical project in Azua, a city in the Dominican Republic.

Our flight took us from Chicago to Miami, and on to Santo Domingo. From the airport we went by van to the summer home of a past dictator, Trujillo. Trujillo had been overthrown and his home, called Posada, had been taken over by the local government. Somehow Posada became the temporary headquarters for MMI groups traveling to and from the Dominican Republic. It was at Posada that we met an additional twenty people from different cities in the United States who were part of the MMI project.

Azua, the village in which we were to set up our temporary hospital, was one hundred miles from Posada. After spending the night in Posada, our group was loaded onto a bus, and we started the trip to Azua. As we traveled, the shacks became shabbier and shabbier, and the people appeared more desperate. The landscape became more arid, goats more plentiful, and children more numerous. With every mile the knot in my stomach tightened, and despairing thoughts streamed through my mind. What kind of situation were my daughter and I entering? After three hours on the dusty road, we arrived in Azua, a dilapidated small town.

Our living quarters were an unused school building that had been outfitted with bunks and beds. We chose one or the other, arranged mosquito netting around it, and went to the hospital to investigate the facility and plan the next day’s activities.

The operating room was very interesting. It was a mobile van approximately forty feet in length that was parked adjacent to the hospital. The van was owned by MMI and had been shipped to Azua for our use. We would perform surgery in the van and use the local hospital as the recovery room. The van was fully equipped for general surgery, with an anesthesia machine and other necessary surgical equipment. The local hospital had forty beds and was served by one doctor who had recently arrived in Azua. He was very young and had just finished his internship.

After dinner Elizabeth and I strolled through the business districts. The people were extremely friendly, the children shouting and following us all around town. They all laughed at our attempts to speak Spanish and obviously were very happy to have us in their city. I took a picture of three little girls, after which I said, "Gracias." They laughed so hard, it almost broke them up.

After a night of barking dogs, we were awakened at the break of day by a rooster crowing. I discovered that there were three surgeons in our group. After breakfast we three surgeons flipped a coin to determine who would see surgical patients in the clinic and which two would alternate operating in the mobile van. The examining room where patients were seen had one bare wooden examination table, a desk, and nothing else. Fortunately, we had brought supplies with us, so we had gloves, masks, paper sheets, and basic medical supplies. A medical student from Puerto Rico was part of our group and acted as my interpreter.

In the morning the waiting room was full of humanity. I had been concerned that there wouldn’t be any surgical patients, but that concern immediately disappeared. People spilled out the door into the surrounding grassy area. I saw several patients with large goiters, a young man with a cleft lip, a patient with a huge parotid tumor, plus numerous patients with hernias. The plastic surgeons saw many children who had severe burn scars. Burns were common, the result of the children falling into charcoal fires.

Very soon the operating schedule was full, and we had to tell the rest of the patients we couldn’t help them. They were extremely disappointed, and it was very hard for us to have to turn so many people away.

The first day I had drawn the straw to examine patients while the other two surgeons operated. After the operating surgeons had completed their first case, I poked my head into the operating van and asked how it had gone. With great concern, the two surgeons told me that during the surgery, the patient suddenly had an episode of no blood pressure and needed resuscitation. What a near disaster that was! It would