Local doctor Rajesh Patel is headed to Burma today, where he will spend the next two weeks performing free, life-saving surgeries on a volunteer surgical mission.
The trip was made possible by the fundraising efforts of members of the Riverhead Rotary Club – particularly Patel’s fellow Rotarian Jack Van de Wetering, and Steve Patterson, whose wife Sharon has belonged to Rotary for many years.
Patel, a local pulmonologist, has participated in more than a dozen medical mission trips to poverty-stricken countries all over the world. His missions are organized by International Surgical Mission Support (ISMS), which sends teams of doctors to provide free medical care and training to patients and doctors in impoverished countries.
“This work is very humbling,” Patel said in an interview for a previous story. “It reminds me how lucky we are to be living in the United States.”
During his trip to Burma, Patel, along with 20 other doctors, will be performing a variety of surgeries in Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city. These include general surgeries, plastic surgeries, thoracic surgeries, obstetric surgeries and gynecologic surgeries.
“We will be carrying medical equipment and supplies worth thousands of dollars, with the help of the Riverhead Rotary club,” said Patel. “[We’ll] leave them behind for the use of the hospital after the mission is over.”
Part of ISMS’s mission is not only to provide free medical treatment, but to provide training to local doctors as well. Patel’s team will be working with surgeons in Mandalay to teach them how to use laparoscopic equipment, along with a variety of other advanced surgical techniques.
They will be screening about 400 to 500 patients for medical treatments. They will also be screening children at area orphanages.
This trip marks the first joint humanitarian mission with the newly chartered Yangoon Rotary Club, through the Rotary Foundation’s global grant program.
“We are very grateful to Riverhead Rotarian Jack Van de Wetering and Steve Patterson, along with their friends and local Rotarians who took on the challenge of raising the funds to make this mission possible,” Patel said this morning
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