Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2013 - (Page 22)

erever Help is Needed Wh K OC ST INK TH th Dr. Michael Newman Inter view wi by Melissa Hartman Most of the time, Dr. Michael Newman practices as a general surgeon at Fayette County Memorial Hospital in Ohio. But over the last eight years, as a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), he has also taken his surgical skills on multiple missions to countries in the midst of war or recovering from natural disasters. He also serves on the board of directors of the U.S. section of MSF, to which he was elected in 2011. Here, he explains what led him to MSF and why aspiring doctors might want to join him in the future. What made you want to get involved with Doctors Without Borders? In 2004, there was a huge tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Indonesia, which was most affected by this tsunami, was in the midst of a civil war. I heard news reports that Doctors Without Borders wanted to provide help in the northern part of Indonesia. The Indonesian government wanted to send military units with the Doctors Without Borders units into the northern part of the country, but Doctors Without Borders said no; they refused to be accompanied by the military. Impartiality and neutrality are central themes to Doctors Without Borders, and I liked that they were not willing to sacrifice their principles. I had heard of them peripherally before this, but at this point I did some research to find out what they were about, where they were, and what they were doing. MSF doctors work in some very isolated and dangerous places. Did you have any apprehensions about that when you applied? No. I’ve always been willing to go where they feel I’m most needed. I was a little nervous when I went on my first mission—and I’m a little bit embarrassed about this—but it was more because I didn’t have 22 imagine any foreign travel experience. This is one of the things they look for in people, that they’ve had some foreign travel experience, so I was atypical in that I didn’t even have a passport. I had to get a passport to go on my first mission. And where was that? I went to Liberia for five weeks, toward the end of the civil war there. Generally surgeons and anesthesiologists go on shorter missions than other specialties; you tend to work pretty hard for a short time and then they send in a relief person. The hospital where I worked was in the capital, Monrovia. It was a school building that was converted into a hospital, and it was run by MSF. We treated some conditions that are similar to things that I treat here, like appendicitis, but also some unusual disease processes like typhoid and unusual skin infections and ulcerations that I don’t see at all here in the United States. But most of what we did there was surgical. There was a fair amount of injury related to violence, which I don’t see often in my practice here. And generally in the United States I don’t do extensive orthopedic work or deliveries, but I do some of that when I’m on a mission. Sept/Oct 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2013

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2013
Contents
Bridging the Gap
The War on Cancer
Teen Researchers on the Forefront of Medicine
Ancient Medicine Meets Modern Technology
Innovations in Medicine
Wherever Help Is Needed
Summer in the Lab
Our Second Genome
The Defi nition of Determination

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2013