“I most remember three patients. The first was T.K., a petite woman in her early 40s who had several home births and for the past 2-3 years had what is known as a prolapsed uterus where the womb hung down between her legs causing obvious problems including social stigma.

R.B. is a 19-year-old boy who broke his upper left leg over a year earlier working on his family’s farm. Because they were subsistence farmers they couldn’t pay for surgery and his leg was simply splinted, confining him to bed for over six weeks. He came to see us because the bones had misaligned and the leg was over an inch shorter than the other as well as being painful so that is was difficult to farm.

The last was R.M., a young lady in her late 20s who had a cute daughter after a prolonged labor that left her with a tear between her vagina and bladder with the obvious complications and stigma.

All these problems were corrected in a short time thanks to a global health fellow in Dr. Burke’s program, a generous local orthopedic surgeon, and myself giving anesthesia. It was amazing how much could be accomplished with so little resources and it was not unlike the inner city Indianapolis clinic where I served on the board of an inner city community health center.

Everyone deserves this basic care that can cost so little.” — Dr. Thomas Mote