In1992, a handful of Colombian children with crooked limbs, scars, and garish orthopedic devices sat in our Chicago clinic, while a woman from Healing The Children posed a seemingly rhetorical question.
“Wouldn’t it be great if you guys could come to Colombia: to teach their doctors and care for the kids in their own country, rather than so far away from their homes and families?”

It’s always easy to say “yes” to questions, both flattering and theoretical.
Who knew she’d be standing in our clinic a week later, with ten airline tickets in hand?

Two months after that, we landed in Cali, Colombia, excited, nervous, and frankly clueless. We were young surgeons and nurses entering an ill-defined war zone. There to “help kids” and “teach doctors.”
Not quite.

During my 30 years of surgical work in Colombia, and then Ecuador, Peru, Jordan, and Ukraine the world has changed. Colombia has changed, and so have I.
I am, today, a better surgeon for all these docs and nurses, my far-flung colleagues, who spoke languages I could hardly understand, yet who taught me to do much more with so much less.

Altruism is never a one-way endeavor. Altruism is another word for grateful!