In July/August 2016 Dr Werts joined Los Voladares Medicos (the Flying Doctors) on a medical missionary trip to rural Guatemala. The group included health professionals from around the United States, as well as physicians from Spain, El Salvador, and medical students from Guatemala.
We arrived bringing our own supplies*, instruments, and other donations to provide general medicine, trauma, gynecology, pediatrics, laboratory, pharmacy, and of course dentistry. Each day our patients–rain or shine–would begin lining up at 4AM to receive care. Over the course of 5 days over 1400 patients, mostly the indigenous Indian people, were seen and treated.
The needs are overwhelming for this very poor population and we certainly could not solve the problems they face in a single trip. For those we saw we were able to provide some comfort and relief, and let them know there are people in the world that do care about them.
It was a fabulous trip made so by becoming a team member with a very select group of caring individuals that left their family and jobs, flew to Central America. They gave of themselves expecting nothing in return other than the satisfaction of having made a difference in a few peoples’ lives.
(* a very special thanks to our friends at Glendale Surgical Associates for their generous contribution of surgical instruments and supplies.)