While the public has a modest grasp of the mission of such organizations like Doctors without Borders, where physicians volunteer to work in some of the world’s poorest countries, nothing can compare with the extraordinary story of a SWAT team of neurosurgical experts performing one the most complicated and demanding surgeries in the field of health in some of the most remote locations on the planet.
Without the benefits of first-world operating rooms, familiar surgical equipment, or even knowing the case histories of those that they will be working on, this extraordinary team, led by Dr. Khalid Kurtom, has now left the Eastern Shore twice to perform these intensive procedures.
The Spy sat down with Dr. Kurtom shortly after leaving an isolated camp in Honduras, where his team operated on eleven patients in three days. He discusses the extraordinary challenges they faced while working without much sleep, but also the emotional, spiritual, and psychological impact that each team member feels during and after these special episodes in the professional and personal lives.
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Regional Shore Health please go here.
Fred W. J. Kirchner says
We are privileged to have Dr. Kurtum and his team available to in the UMD/SRH system, available to Kent County residents. He is very well respected by the many medical professionals who work with and around him. I am only one of the lives he saved, from a brain hemorrhage, in a fleeting moment of time. He carefully monitors his work in post op analysis and if he is not happy with the outcome, he will do it again, to make sure it is right. I was lucky to have survived the middle of the night bumpy ambulance ride to Easton to get the surgery. I am not sure someone in an advanced state of brain hemorrhage, typical of auto accidents, will be able to survive the long ride to Easton. The Chester River Hospital has advanced, (better than Easton), up to date, recently refurbished surgical facilities, including advanced Cat Scan and MRI technology. If this team can travel to Honduras and operate on 11 patients in 3 days, why can’t the UMD compel them to travel to Chestertown to operate on one in an emergency? One of the greatest killers in fall and auto accident injuries is brain hemorrhage, and time is of the essence to address the traumatic pressures, and only a skilled neurosurgeon can do this, and he has a very well qualified NP right behind him.. The Chester River facility is a FULL service hospital, and the UMD needs to stop treating it as a “first-aid station” !! Traveling to Easton for Cat-Scans and surgeon appointments is a serious distraction, with expense, to Kent County residents.. Kent County people need to contact their legislators while they are in session and demand they use the Chestertown facility as a full service hospital, as it was alwasy intended.. I feel sorry for a Washington College student who may suffer such an injury, and have to take long ride to Easton and start the admission proceedure again with another Cat Scan etc. !!