The experience in Tanzania made it “clear to me that there was a very large disconnect in our world, something that became a quest for me to understand,” he said.
In 1998, that quest led Dr. O'Neil to form Omni Med, a not-for-profit health organization with a mission to provide medical assistance in Third World countries (
“Most of what goes on is American physicians training local physicians and other health personnel,” he said. “In Guyana, though, we submitted a grant proposal to start a cervical cancer prevention program for the country. They don't have one. Cervical cancer is the most common malignancy associated with HIV/AIDS. To me, that's the crystallization of what our program is about.”
Dr. O'Neil donates 20–30 hours a week and an annual part of his income to Omni Med operations. He has worked 50%–75% of a full-time emergency medicine physician's schedule since 1992. “I don't work full time; that's how I do it,” he said. “The opportunity cost has been quite high, yet this is something I think is very important. Fortunately I have a very understanding wife, who is very supportive of this work and believes in it.”
Currently, he said, Omni Med's greatest limitation is resources. “We operate on about $15,000–$20,000 per year,” said Dr. O'Neil, who lists Dr. Paul Farmer, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and Dr. Tom Dooley among his heroes. “But the goods and services that we put out are probably [worth] more like $350,000. We just don't have the organizational infrastructure to support doing much more.”
Dr. O'Neil said he believes that every physician in the United States should have an opportunity to work in a developing country or in a poor setting in this country, whether it be through Omni Med or another program. “There are certainly many of them,” he noted.
He's written two books in an effort to inspire physicians and other allied health providers: “A Practical Guide to Global Health Service” and “Awakening Hippocrates: A Primer on Health, Poverty, and Global Service,” both published in 2006 by the American Medical Association. “I think physicians have very little understanding of the real power to make a difference that they have in our world,” he said. “Any physician or nurse can get involved in this work and go abroad.”
A Heart for His Hometown
Dr. Nestor P. Sanchez has always had a heart for helping disadvantaged children. For summer vacations during his residency training in dermatology and dermatopathology in Boston at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, and later during his fellowship in dermatopathology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, in Rochester, Minn., he would lead a group of about 30 children from his hometown of Aibonito, Puerto Rico, to see the sights of New York City.
One year, they attended a Mets game. Another year, they took in a Yankees game. In between were tours of such sights as the Statue of Liberty and the United Nations, and a jaunt to Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson, N.J.
To pay for the children's expenses, Dr. Sanchez, who is married and has three children of his own, sought donations from friends in Aibonito. He put up all the other money. “These were poor children,” he said. “I would take some of their parents as well.”
But Dr. Sanchez's charitable efforts did not stop there. After he completed his training at the Mayo Clinic, he returned to Aibonito to practice dermatology and founded La Sociedad Integra de Aiboniteños, which provides social services to poor children in the area.
The next project came in 1990, when he bought 6 acres of land in Aibonito and helped establish the Hogar Divino Niño Jesús, an orphanage for about 30 children with HIV. More than 200 have lived there since it was founded. The oldest former resident will graduate next year from the University of Puerto Rico. Another one attends American University.
“None of them have died of the disease,” said Dr. Sanchez, who is currently professor and chairman of the department of dermatology at the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan. “Each one of them takes 15–20 pills a day for the HIV.”
In 1997, Dr. Sanchez bought another lot of land for $7,000 and established the Fondita Divino Niño Jesús, which is a soup kitchen and rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics. An architect at heart, he helped design the building.
Next, he intends to build a home for the elderly. “Once it's in my mind, it will be done,” he said. “This is no sacrifice; this is fun. People think it's a sacrifice, but not for me.”