A diary from the U.S.N.S. Mercy: Health care after the tsunami

This physician responded to the need for medical assistance half way around the world and shared his real-time perceptions of the experience with AMNews.

By Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, AMNews contributor. June 6, 2005.

Note: Edited by Stephanie Stapleton.

Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, was on holiday in Oregon last December when a tsunami ravaged parts of Asia. Dr. Wynia, the director of the AMA Institute on Ethics and an assistant clinical professor at the University of Chicago, quickly decided to take action. "It dawned on my wife and me that I had something to offer."

His first step was to go online and begin looking for ways to help. He found Project Hope, the non-governmental organization into which the AMA later channeled its relief donations. At that time, the organization was seeking volunteers to staff a hospital ship. "A floating hospital," he said. "You park it offshore. What a great idea."

In March, Dr. Wynia found himself on that floating hospital -- the U.S.N.S. Mercy. He was one of about 200 U.S. health care professionals who volunteered to assist Project Hope in staffing the Navy's Operation Unified Assistance. As part of this two-month mission, which sought to restore hope to the region and demonstrate American good will, volunteers evaluated and treated more than 9,200 Indonesian patients and did more than 17,000 procedures.

His tour lasted 3½ weeks, during which time Dr. Wynia spent his days just off the coast of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and witnessed the devastation wrought by the giant waves and the resiliency of the human spirit. This trip was not his first to the developing world. He also volunteered in Pakistan while doing his medical training. But this time his purpose was disaster relief -- and that is a very different experience, full of both rewards and frustrations.