Packing cases of sutures and boxes of crayons, a team of Pittsburghers recently flew to the medical rescue of disfigured children in Peru. “All we do is show up and use our hands,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Jack Demos of Fox Chapel. His group—four surgeons, two nurses and one physician’s assistant—made the journey to Lima Feb. 16-26. Donating their time and talents to children, they repaired the ravages of fire and fate. They reconstructed facial deformities. They repaired cleft lips and palates. They replaced burn scars with skin grafts.
Registered nurse Beth Bergman, 39, of McCandless spent months organizing the charitable junket sponsored by Surgicorps International, the Pittsburgh-based non-profit brainchild of Demos, 48. Each volunteer spent about $1,600 to $2,000 of his own money to tend a pair of helping hands. Flying to Peru from Miami, the Pittsburghers joined two California surgeons for eight days of volunteer service in the operating rooms of a government pediatric hospital, the Institute de Salud del Nino. “I just feel I was made to do this,” said Bergman, a wife and mother of three who works part time in the operating rooms at Passavant Hospital, McCandless.
Everybody stayed in a hotel near the pediatric hospital, except for the two days spent on a group tour of Incan ruins in the Andes Mountains. Demos Picked Lima as his destination on the recommendation of previous visitor, pediatric ophthalmologist Dr. Al Biglin, also of Fox Chapel.
Demos, who operates at a number of Pittsburgh area hospitals, previously has exported his surgical expertise to Africa as a volunteer with World Health Mission a nonprofit group similar to Sugri-Corps International. Both groups strive to provide medical expertise, supplies and hands-on help to medical professionals and poor people in foreign lands. “I get tremendous satisfaction helping these people, but I get to see the world, too,” said Demos, who also has volunteered his surgical skills in Asia.
Joining Demos and Bergman on the recent trip to Peru were Dr. Jon Grazer, a resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Mercy Hospital; maxillo-facial surgeon Dr. Carroll Palmore, a resident in maxillo-facial surgery, both of Travis Air Force Base, Calif.; certified physician assistant Bonnie Scavo-Grohowalski of Ross Township; registered nurse Margaret Nelson of Aspinwall; and Fox Chapel Area High School seniors Craig Mauntro and Thomas Kavanaugh.
Demos, a family friend, invited the two young men to accompany the group. “I was really impressed with his work,” Mauro said, “He really wants to help people, and he really wants to help people, and he really wants to give back to the profession that has given him a good life.” Watching Demos in action also inspired Mauro. “I could see myself becoming a doctor,” he said. “It really makes you feel good to see a doctor helping people, and know you could do the same.”
Donning surgical gowns and caps, Mauro and Kavannaugh observed operations, and roved through hospital wards, distributing coloring book, bubble soap and candy. “It kind of makes you feel really lucky to have what you have, and to be healthy,” said Mauro. “When you come back here and somebody is angry or upset, it just seems so petty.”
The teen-angers also snapped oodles of instant Polaroid pictures, wowing the hospital’s young patients. Working with Peruvian physicians, the North American surgeons operated on about 40 children, mostly sons and daughters of Peruvian farmers and facial deformities, and others required skin grafts for burn scars. A number of Peruvians “use open fires to cook and heat with,” said Demos. “And as a result, there are many, many accidents.”
As news traveled about the visiting doctors and nurses, parents poured into the hospital with their children. “There was so much to do, and not enough time. Your heart just ached for all the cases we couldn’t do,” said Bergman, who left behind all her surgical apparel. “They loved our scrubs,” she said. The Pittsburghers also left behind about $20,000 in medical supplies and equipment donated by the Brother’s Brother Foundation of Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Surgicorps International plans to return to Peru and eventually spread its charitable work to other countries. Anesthesiologists are especially needed, as are donations of supplies and money. “There are many nurses and medical personnel interested in doing something like this,” Demos said, “but they can’t afford to do it.”