These are stories directly from our volunteers and members.
Pamela Cole, PT, CWS believes in building relationships to improve global health. As she noted in a recent interview, “Building relationships is where it’s really at.” Ms. Cole, a 2018 HVO Golden Apple Award honoree, first traveled to HVO’s wound…
For over a decade, Dr. Sithach Mey has served as on-site coordinator for HVO’s dermatology project at Preah Kossamak Hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. As Head of the Dermatology Department at Preah Kossamak, Dr. Mey works with HVO to coordinate…
At HVO we often discuss the importance of partnership. Without the support of our partners, including dedicated on-site personnel at each of our project sites across the globe, we would be unable to fulfill our mission to improve the availability…
2018 Golden Apple Award honoree Robert Hoffman, MD already had some international medical volunteer experience under his belt when he first learned about HVO during the 2006 American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) Annual Meeting. He was intrigued…
Pediatric cardiologist Mark Duster, MD believes international health volunteers “offer a vision of the possible” to their colleagues in resource-scarce countries by providing a glimpse into how increased health workforce capacity and health system strengthening may impact patient care over…
"My international volunteer experiences have been life changing and have caused me to recognize that our physical therapy profession has a major contribution to make in furthering global health." - Dr. Janna Beling
Dr. George Meyer gained his first experience practicing medicine internationally as a member of the U.S. Air Force. He served in Thailand, Japan, and Germany. Through these experiences, he and his wife, Lynn Meyer, RN, realized their shared love for…
This past week, I had the opportunity to attend the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in San Diego. During the meeting, I attended several sessions focused on the utility of alternative research methods, including PhotoVoice and digital storytelling,…
Sometimes, when we think of making a difference in health care, we think of major changes – introducing new technology or surgical skills. What we often forget are the small elements of day-to-day work that we take for granted but…
When Dr. Leo Odongo moved from Mbarara, Uganda, to the smaller city of Kabale in September 2016, he noticed a concerning trend. Patients in Kabale and the surrounding rural areas did not have access to dermatology services. Even more concerning,…
For Karen Stolman, MD the motivation to complete her first global health volunteer assignment came from falling in love. “It started with falling in love with the country of Costa Rica, and having already visited and being fluent in Spanish,”…
Although 2018 Golden Apple Award Recipient Cynthia Howard, MD, MPHTM “had never really volunteered before,” when she first learned of HVO in 1996, the pediatrician already had ample experience practicing medicine in resource-scarce settings. “I had worked a bit abroad,”…