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| |  | VOA Online Discussion: Volunteer War Zone Physicians
| Guest: Vince Moss & Vance Moss, Humanitarians and Surgical Doctors
Date: 02 July 08
Moderator: Erin Brummett |
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Erin: Welcome to T2A chat for July 2nd. We're meeting twin brother surgeons who have led recent humanitarian medical missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. Vince and Vance Moss spent several months in war zones, volunteering their surgical expertise, to save lives. The brothers are Army Reservists who have their own medical practice in New Jersey. They also practice medicine at a prominent facility in Pennsylvania, Crozer Medical Center. We're talking with Vince and Vance about what inspired them to leave the comfort of their home in the United States and travel topractice volunteer medicine under the most challenging circumstances.
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Michael: The work that the both of you have done and your commitment to your community during your careers is truly outstanding. Now you have taken that dedication overseas along with your military responsibilities to work with the people of Afghanistan. How did you come to realize the critical need to go beyond your military duties to serve the local communities and provide much needed medical assistance?
Vince: At the time we were developing the initiatives to go to Afghanistan we already were deployed stateside for Operation Enduring Freedom in the summer of 2005. When we were taking care of solders back from Afghanistan and Iraq we had the impression much needed care was more necessary in Afghanistan than in Iraq. With that in mind, and with the fact we were asked to extend our service in Iraq or Afghanistan, we thought our duties and skills would be best suited and more efficient, in Afghanistan, given the statistic that 90-percent of victims of any war are civilians. It was a difficult, difficult journey because what we developed, a simple plan, to be embedded in needed areas, infiltrated by Taliban, many areas were not traveled as much on foot by American or Coalition troops -- so there was a void in terms of intelligence and safety measures when it came to our type of embedding. It's important to know that areas like Sorubi, Charikar, Ghachi are areas that we were told about that had a significant amount of people too afraid to travel to Kabul or to Peshawar in Pakistan to get medical care. It was after we learned about these places that we found out second hand there were a lot of Taliban in those areas. So we were really working with a plan that was not proven at a time when the civilian and military sides of the U.S. government were in conflict over how to proceed with our mission. eventually our plan impressed an organization called northwest medical teams, now called medical teams international, who knew very well the areas we were talking about -- the rural areas of Kabul -- and the need for surgical and medical care for women and children who reached out (the organization) to us and accepted us. The connection between northwest medical teams and the military was a colonel embedded in a lot of those areas before, Gary Davis. He had a young child you had a urological disorder who he pretty much adopted to try to get the child treated an 8-year-old victim of a bomb blast who lost both legs so he could not go to the bathroom like the rest of the males in his society, which is very important, culturally. So when the colonel learned about us and my brother's Vance's urological specialty, he was eager to get our help.
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Michael: How have the Afghan people reacted to your mission with them?
Vance: I think that's a two part answer...one is that before we went over there, there was a lot of negative response to Americans in Afghanistan. The Americans didn't know much of it and kind of thought the war there was fading. When we went over there, we worked on the patients there and they finally turned the corner in terms of their impression of the American presence there. Vince adds that it's important to say before we started treating the first patient in Kabul, we found a lot of hesitation to meet us, African-American men, looking different than the caucasian U.S. and previously Soviet soldiers...we had to gain their trust, and learn their culture and show them we were there not to occupy but to treat as healers...Vance says we were not greeted with open arms initially so we had to earn our right to be present. So we proved ourselves worthy in spirit and in mind and in a physical state that we were there to provide medical care. Basically in the beginning there was skepticism but now great appreciation so we went a second time. Vince says the Afghan people responded to us exponentially as our time there grew...once they started to see we were treating conditions they suffered from for years, and we risked our lives to treat them for no money or gratitude -- Vance says in fact we spent our own money. That way we bypassed a lot of red tape, bureaucracy. That meant a lot to them. Vince says on the issue of money, an example of the corruption there with donations...when they watched us negotiate a price of American dollars for medical services...we were that passionate about serving these people. We paid for them to take the x-ray picture, for example, and then we read the results...that was about 100 dollars, more than a month's salary there. Vince said because of our financial situation we were at risk of kidnapping. We learned as we went along...but that's when our military instincts kicked in.
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Brian (email): How does all the travel and long hours impact your personal relationships? Do you have time for a relationship, or is your whole life wrapped up in your work?
Vance: We are 37, not married, no kids, but we have a small family and Vince and I have been together all our lives, products of our upbringing, pretty much alone. We're not accustomed to going to work at 9am home at 5pm, playing board games. Right now with all the ambitious things we're doing, it's very hard to maintain relationships. Not that we're not in relationships -- but we're so dedicated to our work so some things take a bit of a back seat. But we try our best to make it work. We have a decent social life...we work hard but play hard as well.
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Erin: Where did you get the necessary medical supplies to work with local patients in Afghanistan…has Crozer helped?
Vance: No one helped us financially. Crozer Medical Center let us take the time and we were supported in every way but financially for our missions.
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Erin: What support in more detail have you received from military commanders?
Vince: You need to understand this is such a sensitive topic, a mission never done before, frowned upon for being too risky, lack of recourses and lives that could have been wasted. We took all those risks and it became successful not once but twice. Military support by commanders was more evident after what we completed our missions. For example, we were able to provide information/intelligence that had not yet been obtained. We were in areas infiltrated with hundreds and hundreds of miles of poppy fields, that in itself, means danger. We were worried we would be considered to be C.I.A. (...Vance says imagine being at the kitchen table knowing the history of the Taliban and asking whether you would put yourself there, without on site support...there actually were drug lords protecting us because they knew we were there to help with medical needs. (Erin asks whether Mosses treated drug lords or Taliban)...Vince says not directly Taliban, but we treated Taliban sympathizers...you knew when you were...we were at times whisked away to a cave surrounded by heavy weapons and the patient was wounded...it was our duty to treat, why? Because that is our mandate, regardless of the enemy. Second, most important, if we didn't we weren't sure what would happen.
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Erin: Did you face the possibility of going away?
Vince: Yes, because we were getting more aggressive, more comfortable with our intelligence and movements...there were certain situations we'll never forget, for example a burn victim and we took 5 hours to get to her, near the Pakistan-Afghan border in route to Peshawar...this place was Batawul...when we arrived we had to get back to Kabul to save this child's life...we were faced with staying until morning or staying and risking kidnapping, knowing the prospects of saving the child were better. It was the longest night of my life. Every day was one when we said our prayers and hoped for the best because if we would have died, it would have been doing what we loved. We also need to point out that we did not tell State or Defense about our exact actions; not feeling it was safe enough for that type of information to linger and get leaked to anyone who wanted to be considered a martyr and who could try to kill us. The whole trip we told our Mom we were at Boy Scout camp.
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Erin: How have these trips impacted your relationship as brothers? Do you believe you could have undertaken the missions alone/individually?
Vince: We were training for 5-6 years before going to Kabul...but we had never seen each other operate before...so God works in mysterious ways because before we developed this mission it was unconsciously, we found our niche in life together by watching each other for the first time...won't forget scrubbing in for our first surgical case and watching my brother scrub...then during the operation it was like operating by myself..we realized we need each other and this work has solidified my confidence in brother as a surgeon and as a soldier.
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Erin: What is your sense of the current state of health care in Afghanistan? How bad is it, in terms of what is available to the average Afghani?
Vince: We immediately knew we were in for a very challenging situation, because our first few encounters with medical patients were situations where we were very disappointed because there was no sterile technique, lack of supplies, lack of professional care and courtesy...coupled with the fact that the people in charge just didn't care...they were very well taken care of within their own groups, but for the rural people of Kabul and the eastern border area near Pakistan, these people were just left out there to fend for themselves...they were made to suffer. A reflection of how medical care in Afghanistan was being handled was the overwhelming amount of patients we were facing. They are about 20-30 years behind our technology, a bonified third world country -- the amount of infections is unacceptable given the amount of antibiotics and technology in this world that is available...it's not like you walk into a factory and you have to build a machine to make cares...walking into a factory, seeing dirty windshields and all they needed were Windex (glass cleaner) to clean them. So much is known but nothing's been done about it. The faces of those kids kept us going. Vance says the irony of this is that these people have been living like this for centuries...with a male life expectancy of 35 and women lower
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Erin: Were either of you are concerned that you may have not made much of a dent in Afghanistan's medical environment?
Vance: Before we arrived, you would never hear about the U.S. making a difference in Afghanistan's healthcare situation...we made a grassroots effort...now you see that there are exact models of our work taking place over there.
Vince: It's the outreach like we did, embedding ourselves.
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Erin: Have you both trained other medical professionals?
Vince and Vance: Yes.
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Erin: What reforms or developments would you most like to see for the Afghani people?
Vance: I would like to see passionately is more attention and focus on the monies that are supposed to be funneled for certain programs to go to the right place...an end to corruption. I appreciate this opportunity and thanks. Vince says how disappointed they were in Afghanistan's government corruption because it's the government that drives change and improvement. For example, we paid money to security officials to get places, when that's their job...and on the medical front, that too was just corrupted...so much money pouring in to help but it's being stolen and being used for personal gain so those outside Kabul have to fend for themselves...it needs oversight...Afghans are proud but they do know they need help and that means money and it often gets into the wrong hands. On the correlation with my being African-American in Afghanistan---I still believe there is a lot of skepticism that African-Americans can be highly educated professionals -- we were used to skepticism in the U.S. so we could adjust in Afghanistan and know how respond to this skepticism and move forward with out mission.
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Erin: That's wraps today's T2A chat with humanitarian twin surgeons Vince and Vance Moss. Our thanks to them and to you for joining us. We hope you can come back on Wednesday, July 9th at 1800 utc when visit the home of Firaxis Games game development studio to learn about video gaming with creative director Sid Meier. The name Firaxis comes from an orchestral work composed by the company founder. Firaxis is a fusion of fiery and axis and is used to communicate the company's vision. Firaxis has released twelve so-called triple-A products in ten years and is recognized as a global industry leader. That's Wednesday, July 9th at 1800 utc, right here on voanews.com See you then! |
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