Volunteers - Teamwork for Humanity

Teamwork for Humanity -- Teamwork is the hallmark of Mayo Clinic. Specialists in many fields unite their areas of expertise to achieve a shared goal -- providing the best care to every patient, every day. This sense of teamwork is a daily activity in the exam rooms, operating rooms and hospitals of Mayo Clinic.

You will also find teamwork among the Mayo colleagues who volunteer to serve areas of need in the United States and abroad.

Our Chinese colleagues		China Working with Children's HeartLink, an international humanitarian organization based in Minneapolis, Dr. Joseph Dearani has led teams for more than a decade to South America, India and China. Dr. Dearani serves as medical director of Children's HeartLink. In Lan Zhou (located in central China), the teams provide education to strengthen quality of care at the local hospital. Team members work closely with their Chinese peers (nurse-to-nurse, engineer-to-engineer, etc.). As part of a reciprocal agreement, a Chinese anesthesiologist visited the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Children's Hospital and Mayo Clinic.

Walking home with new friends		Haiti Dr. Thomas Orszulak has led a Mayo Clinic team to Haiti since 1999. They work at the Hôpital Sacre Coeur in the village of Milot. Upon arrival, the team sets up an operating room and intensive care unit; using a portable Echo device, they confirm diagnoses of patients who were referred by local physicians. The team performs about half a dozen open-heart procedures each week. Team members have repaired congenital heart defects and assisted with occasional cesarean deliveries. The majority of procedures are for acquired heart conditions. Mayo volunteers bond with the people of Haiti. Dr. Orszulak explains, "They welcome us into their homes and lives."

Off to the OR in Perm, Russia		Russia Collaborating with the Perm Heart Institute, Dr. Kenton Zehr has led a Mayo Clinic team to Russia for one week in each of the last five years. The entire region of 4 million people (located in the Ural Mountains on the edge of Siberia) did not have heart surgery capabilities until 1999. On their visits, Mayo team members work with local hospital staff to identify diseases, educate colleagues and treat patients. Mayo volunteers have worked with their Russian counterparts on aortic and left ventricular aneurysm repair, aortic valve reconstruction and adult congenital heart conditions. In the past five years, Dr. Zehr has seen volumes at the Perm Heart Institute increase from 50 to 1,000 cases annually. Visits have created an ongoing educational exchange and lifelong friendships between Mayo Clinic and our Russian colleagues. "Volunteering is a great experience. You work together, you learn to be flexible and you know you are helping to make a real difference. Volunteering lets you connect with patients, families and medical professionals in different cultures. Health care volunteers have the privilege of meeting a universal human need."