‘Pre-emptive Strike’

Medical missions hold meaning for developing physicians as well as for developing nations

Being overseas was nothing new for Aaron Abarbanell; he had spent time on six continents, including 10 months in Antarctica, as an officer in the U.S. Navy. What was different about his trip to Balfate, Honduras, in the spring of 2004 was that he was a second-year medical student leading a week-long surgical mission at Loma de Luz, an American mission hospital.

“We operated for five straight days, usually 12 or 13 hours a day, performing approximately 30 major procedures and seven minor procedures, both otolaryngology and general surgery,” says Abarbanell. The 22-person team included eight medical students as well as attending physicians and nurses, the majority of them from the University of Michigan. The trip, which Abarbanell organized, was under the auspices of the U-M chapter of the nationwide Christian Medical Association, which he also organized.

“I wanted to do a surgery mission,” he says, “because, first, I’m interested in surgery and, second, when I was setting up a physician mentoring program for medical students at the U-M, the common underlying theme among the people I approached to be mentors was that they had regrets about not having done some medical mission work, either as a medical student, resident or attending physician. This was kind of a pre-emptive strike, if you will, a vehicle for students to not have regrets in the future.”

They may have made it possible for five children they screened for congenital heart defects to have a future at all. Three of them were brought to the U.S. for treatment, including one girl who had “life-changing cardiac surgery” at the U-M. When Abarbanell led another mission to Honduras this spring, the team included an internal medicine physician from the U-M “who provided up-to-date, continuing medical education on diabetes and hypertension,” he says.

Not surprisingly, Abarbanell has opted for a fourth-year international elective this fall, when he’ll take a group of general surgeons to the west African nation of Togo. “There’s need here, it’s true,” he says, “but there are also a lot more resources here. What do they have in Honduras? Two or three missionaries working their hearts out to serve thousands of people. In that respect, I don’t mind too much going overseas.”

—JM

Also:

Two-Way Street

Decision-Making Strategies of the Mam Mayans

Privilege and Sacrifice

The Quito Project

‘Pre-emptive Strike’