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The Dartmouth
July 15, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

DMS, DHMC doctors volunteer across globe

While Dartmouth Medical School provides for doctors to volunteer abroad through its collaboration with the College's Global Health Initiative and other programs, many DMS and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical School physicians also choose to help those in need independently. From performing reconstructive surgeries on children with cleft lips to donating medical equipment to developing countries, many Dartmouth physicians are volunteering their skills abroad to provide critical health care for people who would otherwise not receive it.

"There's a large volunteer network at Dartmouth, and a lot of it is physicians who piece together volunteer work on their own," DMS professor and anesthesiologist Mike Beach said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

DMS professor Carter Dodge, also an anesthesiologist at DHMC, has been volunteering abroad for 20 years with Interplast, an organization that provides free reconstructive plastic surgery for those affected by socially and physically debilitating birth defects and severe burns.

Social rejection because of abnormal appearance can ruin someone's life in a rural community, Dodge said.

"If you're funny-looking, you're viewed as bad karma," Dodge said. "If you have a birth defect, one of your ancestors did something wrong and this is handed down in the family. A number of families have said, Thank you, this means my child can now get married.'"

Interplast teams usually consist of a dozen people, including nurses, anesthesiologists and surgeons, Dodge said. Each team travels to an underdeveloped region for two weeks and operates on 70 to 90 people. Although Dodge said he became involved with the organization without DHMC's assistance, he said the hospital supports his volunteer work, allowing him to take time off and bring medical residents on trips.

Interplast not only transforms patients' physical features, but also the overall health infrastructure in developing communities, Dodge said. During each two-week project, Interplast volunteers train local doctors and nurses to perform reconstructive surgeries.

"The more important part of that organization is to develop independence," Beach, who also volunteers with Interplast, said. "You could volunteer from now until eternity and people will still be born with birth effects, and people will still be burned."

DMS professor Robert Harris director of ultrasound in the radiology department at DHMC has delivered ultrasound equipment to countries in need.

Harris began his global health work about five years ago when he was involved in a research project with a Serbian student, Veljko Popov DMS '06. When Harris discovered that DHMC no longer used some small ultrasound equipment, he and Popov donated the devices to Serbia. The two also traveled to Serbia to train local doctors to use the technology.

"When you leave equipment there, and the doctors know how to use it, then you're hopefully sustaining them for a longer term benefit," Harris said.

Harris said he is excited to be working globally in a medical field that was formerly restricted to developed countries.

"Radiology traditionally has been a high tech field and didn't really lend itself to donating equipment or training in third world [settings] because they don't have the infrastructure to support it," Harris said. "Fortunately, the development of smaller ultrasound equipment has facilitated the mobility and spread of ultrasound technologies."

DMS professor Rosalind Stevens, a DHMC ophthalmologist, has traveled to 14 countries with Orbis International, which provides eye surgeries in developing nations. Stevens served as medical director for Orbis International's Flying Eye Hospital, a hospital aboard an airplane that is equipped with classrooms to teach and share information about various eye surgery procedures.

DHMC provides institutional resources for doctors to connect with global health volunteer organizations, Stevens said, and the Global Health Initiative at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding also provides information about opportunities in global health.

"What we try to do is mobilize the campus resources on an interdisciplinary basis to deal with global issues," Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz, director of the Dickey Center, said.

A number of Dartmouth doctors participate in the DarDar program, which is run by the GHI and allows Dartmouth medical professionals to work with doctors at Muhimbili University of Heath and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to provide HIV care.

The Dickey Center has also teamed up with the Thayer School of Engineering to implement sanitation systems in rural Tanzania, DMS professor and GHI coordinator Lisa Adams said.