A Promise to Peru was founded by John Shanley, MD, Debra Messina, MD (StonyBrook School of Medicine ‘88) and Natalie DiGioia, MD (StonyBrook School of Medicine ‘01) in October 2011. The organization works with local New York physicians and Stony Brook University’s medical students who are interested in providing medical care to remote areas of the Sacred Valley in Peru. There are two successful missions that A Promise to Peru offers: The medical mission (June 25- July 20, 2012) and a newly founded cataract surgical mission (July 2-6, 2012) by Dr. Messina. The three physicians who established A Promise to Peru worked diligently towards a common goal of offering needed medical and surgical cataract eye care during the past year. Through several fund raising efforts, money was raised to support purchasing medications and supplies to fund last year’s mission thanks to our generous donors.
The mission in 2012 had an unprecedented response from volunteer faculty. Some of the physicians that joined the mission this year were Stony Brook alumni, faculty and staff at Stony Brook Hospital and physicians from the metropolitan area. The medical mission that traveled for four weeks to remote towns in the Sacred Valley included attending physicians, nurses, medical students, other health professionals and family members. The participants were John Shanley, MD, Robert Bobrow, MD and his wife, Evelyn Marienberg, MD (’88) with her daughter, Traci Downs, MD( ’94), Miriam Maher, MD (’94), Tiffany Moadel, MD (’11), Glenn Sterling, MD (’88) with his son, Paul Galstian, OD and his son, Joyce Quick, PA, Dorcas Casuala, RN, Candice Miller, RN, 18 medical students: Amanda Chu, Brendan Carr, Neva Castro, James Connolly, Danielle Duhame, Justin Dredge, Jonathan Kristan, Saira Mehmood, Kaveh Moghbeli, Galaxy Mudda, Ruksana Rangwala, Amy Rumack, Elliot Schottland, Brianne Sullivan, Mari Yasunaga, Elizabeth Young, Jonathan Young, Ava Satnick, a Stony Brook Masters in Public Health student, Michael Yen and a college student Sean Kim from Emory University. They saw over 300 patients each week evaluating rashes, dyspepsia, musculoskeletal complaints, and other primary care related problems. Children received vitamins, worm treatment and had arts and crafts while waiting. As part of the medical mission for the 4 weeks, a traveling eye clinic examined hundreds of patients in remote Andes mountain towns with the aid of an optometrist from Long Island. The medical students were trained in basic refraction techniques and the clinic was able to dispense hundreds of pairs of donated eyeglasses.
The recent addition to A Promise to Peru is the cataract surgical mission. What prompted Debra Messina, MD to initiate a cataract surgical mission was because of the prior medical mission to the Sacred Valley in Peru in June 2011. The portable medical clinic had traveled to many remote towns and villages, sometimes a two hour bus ride each way. It was then that she realized a large percentage of patients had advanced cataracts that no pair of glasses could help to rehabilitate their poor vision. Upon her return she was able to establish contacts with the former president of the Pan American Ophthalmological Society, Dr Francesco Morales who is Peruvian and Dr Shanley contacted the past president of the Peruvian America Medical Society, Dr Victor Rozas. Through them she was able to obtain the letter of invitation from the Peruvian Minster of Health and the necessary temporary medical licenses for the physicians, technicians, nurses and medical students. Dr Messina discovered a nonprofit organization, Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) from Santa Barbara, California seeintl.org and worked with them to lend the necessary surgical equipment and donate enough medical and surgical supplies for 50 cataract surgeries. Close to $100,000 worth of donations were raised in the form of medications, intraocular implants, disposable surgical instruments and other necessary supplies to create an efficient operating room that was able to deliver quality eye surgery. Some of the patients traveled up to eleven hours from the Amazon Jungle, traveling four of those hours on foot to come to the newly formed surgical center. Some of the patients who could hardly make out hand motion a foot in front of them had post-op vision so improved that they could pass their drivers license test here in the United States. During the week of July 2, 2012 the surgical clinic evaluated close to 500 patients for ophthalmic complaints and 36 surgical procedures were performed. The surgical team consisted of five physicians (Debra Messina, MD (‘88) with her two children and husband George Coritsidis, MD, Michael Sable, MD (‘92) with his son, Farshad Lalehzarian, MD(‘88) with his son, and Amanda Lehman, MD), seven Stony Brook medical students, one operating room technician, Lorena Chinchilla, one college student and three high school students and from Peru we had an ophthalmologist, an internist, two nurses and four translators. The two ophthalmologists Dr Sable and Dr Lehman examined the patients with the assistance of the medical students and performed the eye surgeries. Dr Messina continued her role of administrator and supervisor to ensure that the highest quality of care was administered to the patients. An eye clinic and an operating room were created in the midst of a school, Fundacion Ninos Del Arco Iris in the small town of Urubamba. kuychi.org The founder and director of the Arco Iris Helena Van Engelen provided the surgical team with the necessary support staff, such as translators, provided advertisement on the radio and housed patients overnight if it was necessary. Their assistance was really invaluable to our success. The following week our optometrist Dr. Paul Galstian worked with the medical students examining the 1 week post op patients. Proper long term follow up for these surgical patients was provided by a Peruvian ophthalmologist Frilo Silva MD in Cuzco. Having the opportunity to initiate, organize and work with such a talented and dedicated group of medical professionals and students to offer quality eye care to a group of individuals who otherwise would not have had this opportunity was extremely rewarding for all of the members of the mission.
In summary, this year’s A Promise to Peru medical and cataract surgical missions was successful on many levels. On behalf of the co coordinators we would like to express our appreciation to the 12 medical doctors, the one physician’s assistant, the two registered nurses, the one optometrist, the one surgical technician, the 18 Stony Brook medical students, 1 Masters in Public Health student, 1 college student and the 8 family members. Our goal is to continue to improve the sustainability of this mission with each year, as evidenced by the addition f the cataract mission. We are looking forward to planning next year’s missions already!
A special thanks to the designer of the A Promise to Peru website, Paula DiGioia who volunteers her time and skills to create and up keep the website. This website reflects our mission goals, creates awareness and helps us collect needed donations.