Tuesday, May 24, 2011

In Mexico, doctor 'fixes broken eyes'

Dr. Sarah S. Levy recently traveled to a small rural town in Mexico where most of the people make their living from agriculture, and the major crops are cocoa, corn, beans and various tropical products. Sounds pastoral.

But there wasn't anything bucolic about the doctor's time off from South County Hospital and Seacoast Eye Associates, where she is an ophthalmologist and surgeon.

While in Mexico, Dr. Levy, 34, performed dozens of eye surgeries as a member of a medical team made up of doctors from various parts of the United States. They worked in the heat of Tulipan, a town not far from the equator.

The East Greenwich resident offered her ophthalmology skills by way of Medical Ministry International, a group "committed to meet the need for medical care among the world's poor with lasting solutions through excellence in medicine, patient care, and health education," notes its Web site, adding that it mobilizes volunteers for one- and two-week medical projects.

This was the second mission trip for Dr. Levy, and it probably won't be her last.

"This is one of those trips where you come back and truly realize how lucky and how fortunate you are," she said. "You go there and you realize these patients are truly amazing, they are so appreciative, so stoic.

"The people have to travel quite a bit for their health care. It is a fairly poor community," she said, but a center has been constructed there by way of the mission organization she worked with.

"The surgery we performed down there is pretty much what we would perform in the United States," she explained, though in much tighter quarters. Five physicians made the trip, "and all of us came with different experiences. There was a glaucoma specialist, a cataract specialist, someone with retina background," she said.

Three surgeons worked within one room, and two in another, and they all arrived with donations of supplies and equipment from representative hospitals and companies, including South County Hospital.

"We operated for four and half days," Dr. Levy said. They treated approximately 200 people and were scheduled to do more but some surgeries had to be canceled because of the potential risk of complications for some patients.

Sometimes the surgeons would work until 9 or 10 at night and get up the next morning and do it all over again for a waiting crowd of patients.

Entire families would arrive at the center, sometimes all of them on a bike or moped, she said, recalling an 80-year-old woman perched on a bike with other people.

Not many have access to cars so they would do whatever was needed to get to the center, she said.

Dr. Levy said she was seeing cataracts very different from those she sees in the United States.

"The reason why there is such a huge need is because it is close to the equator and a lot of people work outdoors all day." The sun is a lot stronger, she said, and sunglasses aren't a common accessory.

She said for the population there, cataracts surface at a younger age, and some people can be close to being sightless by the age of 60.

Levy said the clinic is "fabulous, incredibly organized. You go there and do the surgery and are able to bring your skills and focus on the people." People  pay some amount if they are able, she said. If they are not able, then they don't.

Levy said while she "doesn't speak a word of Spanish and my assistant didn't speak a word of English, she knew what she was doing I knew what I was doing."

It was the same thing with the patients.

"It's all about body language," she said, explaining how she would hold their hands for reassurance, tap their shoulders, walk them down the hall holding their arm.

Dr. Levy and her husband, Naveh, also a physician, have three children, Eli, 7, Liam, 3, and David, 2. She grew up in Boston and went to Brown University, Harvard University and George Washington University School of Medicine.

Before returning to Rhode Island in 2009, she worked at the Kellogg Eye Center in Michigan.

Taking on a mission trip, while working as a physician and surgeon and being a mother of three, is possible, she said, "because I have an amazing husband.

"I was a little hesitant to go, especially with the kids so young, but my husband was like 'Go, go, go,' and my mom came over. She's a physician, too."

Both Levy and her husband come from families made up of several generations of physicians, so the busy lifestyle was what she witnessed growing up.

"There was never a question," she said of not combining family and career. "You mesh it together." Her 7-year-old was especially cognizant of her mission trip, saying his mom was going away "to fix broken eyes."

Levy said she hopes her own children are able someday to provide similar  help in underdeveloped countries, and she knows she will return, too.

"She has a very busy career and family life. I think it's great she was able to give of herself to go on this mission bringing something to the people that is as basic as clear vision," said Martha Murphy, manager of South County Hospital's marketing and communications department and a hospital spokeswoman.

"In general, there is not much access to health care, period. It's truly amazing that there is an eye hospital there," Levy said of the rural town located in the municipality of Comalcalco. On the drive to the town, "there isn't much and then you come to this beautiful white building," which is the center.

The first time she made the trip, she said, she worked in a converted town hall.

"Electricity was iffy, there was not enough power for air conditioning and the cataract machines," she said, so in 90-degree heat, "we were drenched, I mean wet. It was very, very warm."

A patient who had surgery at the beginning of the week returned before the team left to "give us a hug and tell us we had given him his life is back," she said.

Almost all physicians who attend mission trips return, she said.

"Once you go almost everybody goes back. There's almost no reason not to. It's an expense of money and time but the goodness that you are doing, it's so rewarding.

"It sort of takes you back to your reason for being a doctor. You go there and you are not dealing with insurances, not dealing with any of those other things like paperwork, you're there to treat and to give support. You can just be a doctor, which is really nice."

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