Dr. Aron Rose: Ophthalmology, Orbis, Humanitarian Missions, Soviet Union, Music

Wow.

For someone who's like grown up in like a wealthy, safe region, what does it mean to be suffering in those places?

It's a really great question, and it's a terribly deep question.

Perhaps the easiest way to answer it is to reflect for a minute on what Americans generally think of as suffering or extreme poverty.

There certainly is significant hunger in this country and lots of malnutrition, but people are not usually dying on the streets from hunger.

There are facilities... may be inadequate to take care of dire emergencies.

And while our society may not fulfill its duty to our citizens to take care of the lowest rung, on many occasions, there are masses of people that die of hunger or extreme disease in many countries.

They have no clothes.

They're not wearing old clothes.

Of course, if there's strife, if there's war or violence within the society, the casualties, the suffering is out in the open.

In most societies, it seems to be hidden.

But in so many places in the world, they don't have the luxury of hiding.

And so suffering has a very different face in the developing world than it does in the industrialized world such as in the States.

So how do you pick, like you or Orbis, how do you guys pick certain places to practice medicine?

Well, for me, some of it was serendipity.

In general, what has drawn me to locations has been the level of need.

For instance, Myanmar, Burma, which is not frequently in the news, it used to be the rice basket of Asia and one of the wealthier nations is now probably among the 10 poorest countries and one of the blindest countries on earth.

So that compelled me to go there.

I try to go where the need is greatest.

But what also directs me, or I should say draws me, has been... colleagues and other like-minded doctors who have interested me in locations.

And very often I will want to work with specific doctors or teams that I think are particularly effective.

And that's had a lot to do with my choice of where I've gone as well.

I'm curious if the patients that you treat in these places, do they see themselves as particularly misfortunate or do they think it's like a normal everyday life? Yeah.

I'm laughing because culture seems to dictate so much about who we are and how we react to our circumstances.

And while I don't in any way wish to convey that suffering is on the extreme end of the human experience and there's no way to prettify suffering, There are many people who are influenced by their culture to accept suffering as a normal part of life.