Nurses, doctors share expertise around the world

Every year, SLCH nurses and doctors help children thousands of miles away. KMOV Channel 4 recently featured several of their stories:

Erin Connelly and Maria Pourney, Heart Center nurses, visited Nepal, where they treated 1,500 patients.

Most people in Nepal lack medical resources and access to medical care. The nurses saw lots of joint pain, wounds, rashes, insect bites and infections due to these conditions.

Orthopedic surgeons Eric Gordon, MD, and Charles Goldfarb, MD, visited Saint Vincent Island in the Caribbean. They saw patients with lower extremity deformities. Their work helped straighten legs so the children could walk and play sports. They also worked on upper extremity deformities, usually resulting from trauma or birth defects.

“I’m a parent,” Dr. Gordon told KMOV. “I can’t even imagine what a parent would do in a situation like that, if you have a child with a medical problem you can’t do anything for. We treat these kids and make them better, and the families are so incredibly appreciative.”

Jenny Brandt, child life services, visited Hong Kong, where a new children’s hospital is being built.
She was part of a group that helped the Hong Kong team assess the internship program.

“It makes me appreciate a lot of the things that we have to offer our patients and families here,” Brandt told KMOV.

Jose Pineda, MD, pediatric intensivist; Kamlesh Patel, MD, craniofacial surgeon; and Julie Drobish, MD, anesthesiologist, visited Guatemala to perform four highly complex craniofacial surgeries.

The passion, commitment and camaraderie these medical professionals experienced abroad helps heal children in St. Louis, too. “Our working relationship is never going to be the same after that experience. That’s something that benefits kids there and here,” Dr. Pineda said in the KMOV story.

Click here to see the KMOV video.