Missions to the Dominican Republic

A small team of IMAHelps volunteers will travel to the Dominican Republic in late January to finalize preparations for the two medical missions we have planned for Santo Domingo in 2024. These include:

— A small surgical mission with about 20 volunteers from April 29-May 3, focusing on skin burn patients.

— A big mission with 80-plus volunteers from all medical specialties, from July 25 to August 4, with patient care being provided from Saturday, July 27 through midday Friday, August 2.

IMAHelps President and CEO Dr. Cristóbal Barrios, Jr., IMAHelps Vice President Jeff Crider and IMAHelps COO and Mission Coordinator Jennifer Padilla traveled to Santo Domingo in early October for preliminary meetings with Dominican hospital representatives and to tour several hospitals.

“We learned through these meetings that the hospitals in Santo Domingo are very interested not only in having our team provide surgeries and other patient care, as we normally do, but they want us to provide as much education and training as possible,” Dr. Barrios said.

 “Hospitals in Santo Domingo are especially interested in receiving training on the latest surgical techniques, particularly involving burn patients,” Dr. Barrios said, adding that he may coordinate Zoom calls for initial training purposes between surgeons at UC Irvine and surgeons in Santo Domingo.

IMAHelps will also likely arrange for a few surgeons to provide educational seminars to Dominican hospital surgeons on Friday, July 26, while the rest of our medical mission team assists with setting up for our big mission. 

Dominican hospital officials said there is a good chance the IMAHelps team would not only treat local patients from Santo Domingo, but patients from Haiti, since many impoverished Haitians cross the border into the Dominican Republic seeking healthcare services.

Dr. Barrios, Crider and Padilla will travel to Santo Domingo in late January to finalize medical mission setup preparations, which include planning meetings with hospital officials to determine which facilities will be made available for IMAHelps volunteers and identifying the most affordable local suppliers of surgical and pharmaceutical products and supplies for our missions.

“We try to purchase most of our medicines and supplies in-country so that we can avoid problems with trying to get our supplies cleared through Customs,” Dr. Barrios said.

IMAHelps team is coordinating our missions in Santo Domingo with assistance from representatives from another nonprofit organization that has direct ties with high-level officials in the Dominican Republic.

Volunteers who would like to join our mission team in the Dominican Republic are encouraged to sign up as soon as possible through our volunteer page and by January 1 at the latest so that we can assess the size of our team and identify any remaining medical specialities we need to fill. The deadline for payment for hotel accommodations is April 1.