BIMDA members take global health care approach
by Kathy Hagood
Brevard County, FL -
The Brevard Indo-American Medical and Dental Association is well known for the international medical missions its members make not only to India but also to Latin America, Africa and other parts of Asia.
When BIMDA kicked off in 1995, its focus was to provide a social networking group for area doctors, dentists and pharmacists of Indian origin.
“There was a real need to help bring together the growing professional community,” said Glad Kurian, the honorary executive director and co-founder of the group, which now has about 200 members.
As BIMDA grew and became a nonprofit organization, it expanded its mission to include educational opportunities so its members could benefit from each other’s expertise, learn more about cutting-edge medical concepts and gain required continuing education credits.
“BIMDA allows for more collaboration among the medical professions. We learn from each other,” said Dr. Sumant Pandya, MD, chairman and president of the group.
The group’s signature annual event is the BIMDA Medical Expo & Symposium, which is set for April 12 this year. The educational expo is also the group’s biggest annual fund-raiser, providing monies for BIMDA’s donations to international, national and local charitable efforts.
Over the years BIMDA has increased its support for charitable outreach efforts, including offering seed money for its members’ medical missions and donations to assist national and international areas hit by natural disasters, including hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. Individual members also make their own personal contributions to such causes.
Pandya, a pathologist, said medical missions have a contagious attraction for group members. BIMDA members also enlist physicians outside the organization for their missions.
“It’s an infectious process. Members come back from their missions with such enthusiasm,” he said.
Medical missions typically last only a week or less because doctors must use time that otherwise would be spent on vacation or other personal activities.
“We can always do more, and we should do more, but it’s important to do something,” Pandya said.
Pandya went on his first mission medical mission in September with the Titusville-based Doctors Goodwill Foundation. He was encouraged to join the mission by fellow BIMDA member Dr. Kanti Bhalani, M.D., who founded the foundation in 2003 with other Parrish physicians to provide charitable medical services both locally and internationally.
Pandya and his wife, Dr. Snehlata Pandya, M.D., a retired OB/GYN, went with Bhalani, also an OB/GYN, and other area physicians on a three-day outreach to a hospital in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. The group brought donated supplies and equipment with them.
“All of our area hospitals and many medical vendors are good about donating excess inventory and equipment. Of course we can always use more donations, which allow us to do more to help,” Sumant Pandya said.
During the September mission, Sumant Pandya gave seminars on disease detection and consulted with laboratory staff on various medical cases during the mission.
“It was a very fulfilling experience. I really felt like a made a difference,” he said.
Another BIMDA member, Dr. Mukesh Aggarwal, M.D., has been going on medical missions once or twice a year for more than a decade. During his last mission, over the Thanksgiving holidays, he performed more than 90 cataract surgeries.
“The long flight is exhausting, but the work is very satisfying. When you see the smiles on the faces of the people, that makes it all worth your efforts, Aggarwal said.
Encouraged by a colleague, the ophthalmologist went on his first medical mission in 1993 to the Dominican Republic. He wasn’t able to perform surgeries but did treat a variety of eye ailments.
“You have to have a sterile environment to operate, which is a challenge on a medical mission,” he said.
In 1996, Aggarwal began working with the Maheshwar Foundation in Melbourne, visiting a remote area west of Dehli. The next year he went with the group to the northern Punjab region of India. Finally he had proper facilities to perform cataract surgeries.
“The villagers are often exposed to large amounts of UV radiation so they tend to develop cataracts early,” he said.
Maheshwar helped set up a clinic in the Tanda area which now has grown into a hospital. Aggarwal has put his own resources toward the hospital and medical missions in the Punjab area, including donating a $10,000 operating microscope. The Merritt Island and Suntree Rotary Clubs have also assisted with donations.
Aggarwal and others on the Maheshwar missions also try to address non-medical needs of the area Punjabi population as they can. For example, because temperatures can get chilly, they distributed 100 blankets this year.
“You don’t think about what a difference a blanket can make to a person, but when they don’t have one it means everything,” Aggarwal said.
Another BIMDA member who frequently goes on medical missions is Dr. Silas Charles, M.D., president-elect and co-chair of BIMDA. Charles and his family continue to foster the Christian Cancer Centre, Hope Village and Leprosy Mission, which they founded in India.
Through on-going efforts, orphans and those suffering from cancer, leprosy and AIDS/HIV are cared for. Charles also leads medical missions to the area to bolster treatment efforts.
The radiation oncologist and president of Cancer Care Centers of Brevard Inc. is a tireless fundraiser for a variety of local, national and international charitable causes. He like other BIMDA members emphasized that it takes many people working together to make medical missions successful.
"I am just a spoke in a wheel made up of friends and coworkers that have teamed up to bring hope to the hopeless, not just in India, but where ever our God-given gifts and talents may be utilized," Charles said.
For more information on BIMDA, visit www.bimda.com