Volunteers run surgical clinic and help more than a thousand patients

After nearly a decade of traveling to Guatemala, a team of Corvallis surgeons and other volunteers are returning yet again to lend aid to poverty-stricken residents, some who have never before seen a doctor.

Under the umbrella of Oregon Faith in Practice, 40 volunteers from the Corvallis area will travel to the city of Antigua, Guatemala, on Friday to spend a week working in country. Many of the participants are surgeons, and they will be staying in Antigua to hold a surgical clinic where they will do work ranging from gynecological surgery to hernia repairs.

“Frequently rural people have a very hard, physical life, and many women have many babies, very young,” which leads to conditions such as prolapsed uteruses, explained volunteer April Fisher, who helps coordinate logistics for the team. “The men work so hard that they suffer from all types of hernias.”

When plastic surgeons accompany the team, they repair cleft palates and help burn victims, and dentists perform dental surgery. The group changes during every trip, and the clinics are arranged according to the skill sets of the visiting surgeon. About 55 surgeries are performed within the four days of the surgical clinic.

While half the team stays in Antigua, the other team members travel into the countryside to hold medical clinics in remote villages, often treating indigenous villagers who may speak a Mayan-based language.

“A lot of people walk for miles,” Fisher said.

At the clinics, doctors and nurses can treat basic problems and screen for others, including surgical issues that can then be referred to future teams in Antigua. They see up to 1,200 patients during the week.

While they can’t treat chronic issues because there are no follow-up appointments, they can do things like checking women for cervical cancer, a big killer in the country.

Beginning last year, a new, quick test for cervical cancer allowed 400 women to be screened for the disease, and 30 women were diagnosed. Those women in the early stages were treated, and the others were referred elsewhere.

The visits can also be an opportunity for local doctors to receive training by working with or observing the visiting surgeons and dentists.

Every person who participates in the Faith in Practice Medical Mission pays his or her own way, and has to bring all their own medical supplies, purchased through donations.

At a glance

For more information or to donate to Faith in Practice, go to www.faithinpractice.org.