Our greatest teachers often are patients and their family members. It is through their eyes and experiences that we can begin to understand the challenges patients face in accessing a safe and timely surgery. On a recent trip with our Neurosurgery & Neurology Institute (NNI), I was humbled to learn more about Paraguay’s health system and culture from one such person. 

How do we measure our work? We can count surgeries performed and medical supplies delivered, but what about our equally important work fostering relationships? The XXI Bolivian Congress of Neurosurgery in Santa Cruz reminded us of the power of relationships to improve access to safe and timely medical care.

Emilia traveled with three of her four children from her home in Monteagudo, Bolivia, to the city of Sucre, seeking treatment for epilepsy. It was an eight-hour trip on mostly unpaved roads, but the children knew the journey was necessary to improve their mother’s health.

An estimated 70% of those who suffer epilepsy in Latin America and the Caribbean lack access to care. As we travel on mission and speak to dedicated local doctors, we know that these are not just statistics.

Our neurosurgical partnerships in Paraguay began only five years ago, but in that time we’ve shared many ideas that evolved into joint plans to improve the health and quality of life for patients in need of neurosurgical care. This week, it was our great joy to see so many of these ideas concretized.

Paraguay is characterized by its land-locked isolation, and this isolation was exacerbated over the past two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. That context has made it especially rewarding to take strides in solidarity with our Paraguayan colleagues – implementing unified plans for mutual collaboration around common goals.

It’s a bright new dawn in Cochabamba today as our patient, Marian, has recovered her ability to swallow food.

For years, patients seeking surgeries in Cochabamba’s public hospitals have languished on months-long waiting lists. The situation is especially dire now. Our mission team will assist in over a dozen surgeries to help alleviate the crushing demand.

Both the Chagas disease scenario and the cardiac health field have greatly evolved since our Pacemaker Program began over 20 years ago. Dr. Marta Vakulenko of Los Angeles, USA, and Dr. Paola Rodriguez of Cochabamba, Bolivia, represent a new generation of surgeons who will continue to build our bridge to care for cardiac rhythm patients into the coming decades.

Home visits with our patients are an opportunity to pause, to look at the richness of others, and to examine our own comfortable world. We were grateful for the opportunity to visit two of our pacemaker patients this week.

Traveling to Bolivia, we’ve found a renewed sense of hope in the ability to be present with our colleagues during a time of global turmoil. The power of human connection and the joy of being physically present remains stronger than ever.

By physically traveling to Sucre, we channeled skills and resources that would be otherwise unavailable to our partner surgeons and their patients. Patients like Sergio, a thirty-two-year-old intensive therapy resident and father of two.