These are stories directly from our volunteers and members.
Drs. Sushil and Ankita Sagar have been father and daughter HVO volunteers since 2019. Dr. Ankita Sagar is the project director of the HVO internal medicine project in Costa Rica where she has also volunteered. Dr. Sushil Sagar has volunteered…
Dr. Robert Erdin made his first trip to Moshi, Tanzania with the HVO orthopaedic project at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) in January of 2020. He had been looking for volunteer opportunities for orthopaedists, and he learned of HVO through…
Dr. Brian Hollander, longtime HVO volunteer, was traveling through Nepal in 1978 and saw a need for basic dental care and education. At the time of his initial trip, there were only thirty practicing dentists in the country of twenty-five…
Dr. Michelle James, pediatric hand surgeon and chief of orthopaedics at Shriners Children’s Sacramento, had always wanted to volunteer but felt she needed to wait for her kids to be grown and out of the house. When her daughter took…
For over twenty years, Suzanne Brown, CRNA has been volunteering with HVO all over the world with assignments in Guyana, Laos, Belize, Bhutan, and Cambodia. She got her start when HVO Executive Director Nancy Kelly contacted the American Association of…
After a long hiatus as COVID-19 shut down borders and stalled travel, HVO began sending volunteers overseas once again. This summer, volunteer Dr. Mark Koh Jean Aan, clinical associate professor and head and senior consultant at the Department of Dermatology…
2016 Golden Award honoree Kay Ahern, PT, CHT has volunteered twenty-six times in twenty-three years. Kay Ahern, PT, CHT has completed twenty-six assignments in six different countries since she began volunteering with HVO twenty-three years ago. For the eight years…
Drs. Glen Crawford and Suzanne Abkowitz Crawford have been volunteering with HVO’s orthopaedic project in Tanzania since its beginning. They discovered HVO when an HVO volunteer presented a lecture on volunteering and teaching to Dr. Crawford’s senior residency cohort. Both…
Dr. Sam Baker came to Bhutan out of a desire to volunteer in a rural, resource-scarce country and stayed because of his love and respect for the country and people. He has now been volunteering annually in Bhutan with HVO’s…
What are they doing now? Mubashir Jusabani’s dream of becoming a physician began at an early age, after breaking a number of bones as a child. During his visits with the orthopaedic physicians, he felt their compassion and dedication. He…
Trenton Harper, a nationally registered paramedic, served in Bhutan for six months on a Rita Feinberg Fellowship. He shared his thoughts on the experience with an HVO staff member. On the 14th of January I arrived in Bhutan, through HVO,…
Growing up in Cameroon, Viviane Leuche, MD, was inspired by her childhood pediatrician to pursue a career in pediatrics. The African continent’s relatively young population—the estimated median age is 19 years old—offers many opportunities for a pediatrician to make an…