A group of surgeons, nurses and OR technicians from Albany, New York, make the trip to the DR once each year and offer numerous types of plastic surgery. They aim to do work on children with cleft lips, cleft palates or other deformities. I, along with 3 other Peace Corps volunteers, assisted them with their mission in early March.
For the past few years (and this year too) the group has done their work at the Hospital Dr. Antonio Musa in San Pedro de Macoris. The Musa, as it is known, is located just 20km down the road from my site and is where people from my own site go when they are ill. The doctors arrived from snowy Albany on a Saturday and on Sunday we did intake for potential patients. Scores of people showed up with afflictions ranging from full body scars to small, almost unnoticeable scars and everything in between. There were fewer children and less cleft lips or palates than the doctors were accustomed to seeing, but a lot of people in need. Surgeries and operations were scheduled for the week and began on Monday.
From Monday to Thursday, more than 40 patients were worked on. Our primary role as volunteers was to translate for the doctors and to chat with patients and try to put them a bit more at ease before surgery. We got to meet a lot of interesting Dominicans and a number of patients were from communities near to my own. It was great to be able to make a personal connection, as small as it might have been, with someone living in a batey just up the road or in a nearby city. The small bits of familiarity went a long way to the Dominicans surrounded by strange white people.
Translating brought us into the OR itself as we talked patients through the anesthesia process. After they were asleep, we became spectators in the arena that is the OR. It was a mildly intimidating place at first. No one wanted to be the asshole American kid who passed out at the first sight of blood and then needed surgery himself. After seeing a thumb reconstruction on Monday morning, I had no fear and loved being in the OR and in the thick of it whenever possible.
The patients we saw came from all walks of life. There were children born wither proper fingers or toes. Adults who had scars from acid burns. An infant born without an opening to her vagina. Three different people who had had their ears bitten off (Tyson/Holyfield-style) in fights. People with scars from machete fights. And much, much more.
I had never realized before the medical mission that throwing battery acid on another human being is a common form of vengeance here in the DR. Machete fights yes, malicious acid attacks no. We saw multiple cases of people covered by large scars from acid thrown on them by angry friends of jealous lovers. We also saw a man whose wife, after learning of her husband’s infidelity, doused him in gasoline and threw a match. His entire upper body was covered in scars and the skin of his forearm and bicep had fused together. The doctors unattached it so that he had further arm motion.
The team from Albany Plasticare was great to work with. They did a lot of incredible work in a very short time period. When not at the hospital we got to know the doctors and nurses at the hotel we all shared. It was interesting and inspiring to see the work they did. As a PCV, so much of my work is educating youth and preparing them to make healthy decisions in the future. We very rarely see the immediate impact of our work and often struggle to quantify the work we do. The doctors on the other hand could change lives for the better in a matter of hours. They could see the benefits of their work in no time whatsoever.
Being part of a medical mission and spending time in an actual operating room was certainly a highlight of my Peace Corps service.
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