Humanitarian Missions Abroad Extend Medical Care in Impoverished Nations

Dr. Edward Lilly, a gastroenterologist from Norfolk, Virginia, volunteers with Physicians For Peace (PFP), a humanitarian organization that provides medical education and training, clinical care, and donates medical supplies to developing countries abroad. “My experience with PFP has made me much more aware of the needs throughout the world and the complexities of medical service in underdeveloped countries,” said Dr. Lilly.

Dr. Lilly has led eleven medical missions to Haiti since 1990. Dr. Lilly’s humanitarian efforts have centered on two hospitals, Hopital Ste. Croix and Hopital Albert Schweitzer, where he and his team donated equipment and medical supplies for endoscopic services. As Team Leader for PFP efforts in Haiti, Dr. Lilly worked with local physicians to develop a health care system for the schools and orphanages of the Silesian Sisters.

Dr. Lilly has played a major role in advancing medical, nursing and dental educational programs in Haiti and has led the pediatric faculty of Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in a multi-day program at the medical school in Port-au-Prince. Currently, he is pursuing a partnership with Partners in Health (PIH) to help with the training of several medical specialties, which are being developed in clinics by a local church congregation and PIH.

During a medical mission to West Africa in July 2007, Dr. Lilly met with government officials and physicians in local and regional facilities to identify ways PFP volunteers could work within the guidelines of the Millennium Project of the United Nations to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease in Mali and Senegal. Furthermore, Dr. Lilly is in the process of helping the pediatric faculty of the Gabriel Touré Hospital of the University of Bamako, in Mali’s capital, to establish subspecialty services utilizing U.S. pediatric faculties. Both projects will comprise a large part of the PFP program in Africa.

“I am humbled and immensely grateful to realize how these opportunities have enriched my life and enlarged my world view,” said Dr. Lilly. “It has been amazing, but also very gratifying to see how one activity often leads to the next,” added Dr. Lilly.