Posted on 05/24/2008 10:29:28 AM PDT by SandRat
COB ADDER, Iraq – U.S. and Iraqi ophthalmologists teamed up to provide eye care to approximately 100 Iraqi citizens as part of a U.S. and Iraqi medical engagement at Camp Mittica, May 19-20.
Dr. Stephen G. Waller, an ophthalmologist from Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio led a team of local Iraqi and Aegis Defense Services medical personnel in administering care to the Iraqi people.
The team performed surgeries on the surface of the eye, such as cancers and other growths as well as eyelid deformities during the medical engagement. The team also provided eye check-ups and handed out scores of prescription glasses, sunglasses and bottles of artificial tears.
Waller is a retired Air Force colonel, who, among many other duties in his 31-year career, was a flight surgeon in Korea and the Philippines. He performed the first refractive laser surgery in the Air Force.
Waller was impressed with his Iraqi counterparts, ophthalmologists from Nasiriyah Hospital.
“They are in every way my peers,” Waller said.
Stavros Yiannakis, a reconstruction team liaison officer, said it was a good experience working with the Iraqi doctors because of their skill. These doctors often have to work without the all resources they need in their job.
Khalid Abdull Shaheed, an anesthesiologist from Nasiriyah, said it was also a good experience to work with Waller because of his “professionalism,” saying that it was additionally beneficial to be able to work with some tools they do not have at Nasiriyah Hospital.
“I hope they see us working here and see that we have good hearts – that Christians can be good people, too,” Waller said.
this is wonderful, but we can’t take care of medical care in our own country. we have no business going to help other people when we cannot care for our own.
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