AAWC Special Report: In the First (a volunteer’s story)

For the past 28 years, Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) has been dedicated to improving the availability and quality of health care through the education, training, and professional development of the health workforce in resource-scarce countries. HVO has developed assignments for health care professionals to complete in 29 countries around the world. A member of the AAWC for almost 10 years, I sought and was provided the opportunity to volunteer in St. Lucia.

I traveled to St. Lucia Christmas week 2015 with my husband (Cet), 2 sons (Cooper, 12, and Cruz, 10), and mother-in-law. Although I was not asked to do so, I made great efforts to get donations of costly wound care and orthopedic supplies and dialysis kits to take with me. Thanks to the generosity of North Sunflower Medical Center (Ruleville, MS), Medtronic Incorporated (King of Prussia, PA), Covidien (part of Medtronic), ConvaTec (Greensboro, NC), Inspired Medical (Calera, AL), Medline (Mundelein, IL), and Owens & Minor (Mechanicsville, VA), I stuffed 7 pieces of personal luggage with medical supplies to present to personnel at the facility at which I would volunteer. The 8 lists of items had to be itemized, labeled, and assigned monetary values for the St. Lucian custom’s agency, which was made aware of the arrival of supplies in advance. I had to surrender my luggage to airport customs temporarily; thankfully, the luggage appeared on a storage dock in the parking lot of the medical facility 2 days later. 

I was assigned to St. Jude’s Hospital. The original facility experienced a major fire September 9, 2009 and since then has been operating out of the George Odlum Stadium, a few miles away from the original hospital site. The use of the stadium was only meant to be temporary, but almost 7 years after the fire, the hospital is still functioning at the track-and-field Olympic training site built and financed by the Chinese government in 2002. 

I didn’t really know what to expect. I found more similarities than differences in the organization and provision of care. The people were friendly.  The outpatient physical therapy and wound care practices I witnessed paralleled the standard of care to which I’m accustomed. Except for the constant reminder that the hospital was housed within a stadium, I could have been practicing in any physical therapy clinic in the United States. I learned people/patients are the same wherever you go. Barriers of many varieties exist, but one can always find a way to overcome them and develop delightful relationships in the process. That’s me (center) pictured with members of the physical therapy staff. 

Because all volunteers are expected to teach, I had committed to introducing a concept in wound care new to the staff at St. Jude: the use of negative pressure wound healing. Because my teaching aides/equipment did not arrive in time to be packed for the trip, I had to improvise and attempted to recreate NPWT using only the supplies and equipment the hospital had available and fashion a “wound vac” from scratch.  This involved utilizing a reasonably-sized, non-noisy device that provided constant and reliable suction, sponge dressings, tubing, and transparent adhesive. Fortunately, I was able to design a safe, duplicable method — an accomplishment of which I’m most proud.  

I am grateful to the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC) Scholarship Committee for awarding me a $3,000 scholarship that helped make this volunteer travel assignment possible. HVO volunteers finance their own trips including airfare, room and board, ground transportation, meals, and incidentals. The scholarship money helped offset these costs. 

Because it is the premier wound care organization in the nation, I plan to get increasingly more involved with the AAWC.  

Dr. Oguz is the Vice President of Service Line Development and Director of Rehabilitation, North Sunflower Medical Center, Ruleville, MS; and a Healthcare Consultant with Sunflower CAH Management Group. She can be reached at: Carmen.Oguz@northsunflower.com. This article was not subject to the Ostomy Wound Management peer-review process.