Operation Compassion: Liberty surgeons go distance to help others

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The Vindicator/Geoffrey Hauschild Dr. Abdul Ghani and Dr. James Smith sit in an examination room at their office along Belmont Ave. on Wednesday afternoon. The two doctors have made 4 and 3 trips, respectively, to Guatemala in order to provide free general surgeries for impoverished peoples. "Its extremely gratifying," said Dr. Ghani, "these people have the need and no access, some of these people come 50 to 100 miles to bring their families to care."

Liberty surgeons go the distance to help others

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

Drs. James Smith and Abdul Ghani of Liberty performed 62 surgeries in six days as volunteers with Hospital de la Familia, an oasis of medical hope in the desert of health care that are the mountains of Guatemala.

People with nowhere else to turn for medical care travel many miles on foot, the trek from their homes sometimes taking days, to get the free, often life-saving surgeries provided by the Liberty doctors and the rest of their team of 40-45 surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and other support staff.

Other patients come by bus to Hospital de la Familia.

“They are the poorest of the poor,” Dr. Ghani said.

The Liberty physicians, both general surgeons, have for several years spent a week in November in the mountain village of Nuevo Progreso performing surgeries on people who otherwise would almost certainly not receive that care.

This year’s trip took about 12 days, including 6 1‚Ñ2 days of surgery. Their group was named Team McGlynn after a classmate of Dr. Smith’s. It included general, eye, plastic and obstetric/gynecological surgeons, and they performed 212 surgeries in less than a week.

Other teams, also organized by the Hospital de la Familia Foundation, based in Berkeley, Calif., staff the hospital at other times of the year, Dr. Smith said.

Drs. Smith and Ghani and their team had a daunting trip of their own to get to Nuevo Progreso.

Transportation and meals cost $1,500, which they pay themselves. Team members also took along 76 boxes of medical supplies such as antibiotics, surgical gowns and gloves and sutures — basically everything needed for surgery, Dr. Ghani said.

Team members gathered from around the country in Houston for the flight to Guatemala City. From there, under protection of the Guatemalan army, they traveled by bus for four or five hours sometimes over gravel and dirt road into the mountains leading to Nuevo Progreso.

The day they arrived, they were treated to a party by the local Hospital de la Familia staff. But early the next day, starting at 7:30 a.m., they began their days of 10 hours of continuous surgery.

As general surgeons, they perform a variety of surgeries, the most common of which are hernia and gallbladder, they said.

“By fixing their hernias, the patients are soon able to go back to work,” Dr. Smith said.

The medical team’s plastic surgeons repair a lot of cleft lips and palates and also burn injuries suffered because many of the patients cook over open fires, the doctors said.

Dr. Ghani said he and Dr. Smith interviewed 90 potential patients but only had time or the ability to operate on 62.

A 14-year-old boy, brought in by his mother, had a huge malignant tumor on his right shoulder. He previously had been to a hospital in Guatemala City, but doctors there would not operate on him, Dr. Smith said.

“He needed his arm and shoulder removed. Unfortunately, we couldn’t operate either because we lacked the necessary equipment,” he said.

A patient they were able to help with a simple circumcision was a 4-year-old boy, whose penis tip was closed.

The operation will allow him to live a normal life. Without it, he would have had problems with infections and pain and could have died, Dr. Smith said.

Dr. Ghani, 69, who retired Dec. 31, 2009, came from Pakistan to Youngstown in 1973 for a residency with the Youngstown Hospital Association, which later became Forum Health.

He graduated from the University of Karachi in Pakistan in 1964 and did surgical training in England for several years before coming here under the auspices of the National Resident Matching Program.

He said he had never heard of Youngstown before coming here, but after his residency he started a private practice in Liberty in 1977.

Dr. Ghani’s wife, Saeeda, also retired Dec. 31 from her position as a lab administrator at St. Elizabeth Health Center. They have two daughters, Sadia Hussain in Dubai and Dr. Aliya Zia, a pediatrician in Arizona.

Dr. Smith, 54, originally from New York City, came here 26 years ago for what he thought would be a one-year residency with the Youngstown Hospital Association. Dr. Ghani, however, invited him to join his practice in 1989, and Dr. Smith has been here ever since.

“I told Dr. Ghani that he is welcome back to the practice any time he wants to,” Dr. Smith said.

Dr. Smith grew up in Mexico City because of his father’s job as a radio and television announcer. Kenneth Smith was of Mexican descent and was asked by NBC in 1957 to move to Mexico City to translate shows into Spanish.

Dr. Smith completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas and graduated in 1983 from LaSalle University School of Medicine in Mexico City.

He and his wife, Dr. Alma, who specializes in internal medicine, have two sons, Michael, a student at Youngstown State University, and Benjamin, a student at Ursuline High School.

Dr. Smith, fluent in Spanish, the language spoken in Guatemala, was recruited into the Hospital de la Familia mission work by a medical school classmate, Dr. Michael McGlynn Jr., when one of Team McGlynn’s general surgeons could not go.

Dr. Smith admitted he had to be “sold on the idea” but now, after three missions to Guatemala, finds the experience “very satisfying.”

“Extremely gratifying” is how Dr. Ghani described his four mission trips to Hospital de la Familia. In addition to helping the Guatemalan people, it is a pleasure to work with team members, all of whom, including doctors, do whatever tasks are needed, be they medical or not, he said.

The volunteer teams work in the Hospital de la Familia, which has four operating tables and open wards where patients recover. They live in a motel-like wing of the hospital complex, which was built with donations.

Both men say they hope to continue the mission work — even Dr. Ghani, who is retired. There is a lot of work to be done, and the people there are very poor and can’t afford health care, Dr. Smith said.

alcorn@vindy.com

GUATEMALA MISSION

Drs. James Smith and Abdul Ghani performed 62 surgeries in six days as volunteers with Hospital de la Familia in the mountains of Guatemala.

kGuatemala is in Central America below Mexico and above El Salvador and Honduras. The Pacific Ocean is on its west coast and the Caribbean Sea to the east.

kFor some 30 years, the Hospital de la Familia Foundation has been providing medical services to the poor of Guatemala.

kPeople who wish to donate to the foundation can mail a check or money order to Hospital de la Familia, P.O. Box 12981, Berkeley, CA 94712. Donors are asked to include their name and address, including ZIP code.

Source: Dr. James Smith and Dr. Abdul Ghani