Edward A. Pulice, M.D.
160 Hawley Lane, Trumbull, Connecticut 06611
Epulice@snet.net

Photography by Lincoln Turner

In the spirit of volunteerism inspired by 9/11, an American ophthalmologist joins an international team of doctors to assist a clinic in Romania.

Although I no longer live there, I will always be a New Yorker. After 9/11, we all became New Yorkers. We were joined in our sense of violation and outrage. A relatively small band of murderous fanatics sought to impose their twisted sense of justice by destroying the symbols of liberation and opportunity that they themselves had enjoyed. After the numbness of 9/11 wore off, I reflected on the many messages of this tragedy. The very fact that so few men could affect so many lives paradoxically affirmed the values they tried to destroy. The Age of Enlightenment, from which our culture and Freemasonry derive, underscored the basic necessities of individual freedoms and participatory democracy. If a few crazed fanatics could have so profound an effect on so many innocents, what could other individuals achieve for good instead of evil? I believe the flood of charity and fraternity that came out of 9/11 is our reflex effort at counterpoint. Our many acts of charity, however small, really do matter and have far-reaching effects.

Since 1980, I have been a practicing ophthalmologist in the greater Bridgeport, Connecticut, area. After 9/11, I decided to contribute my professional time to Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) International. Like many others I was searching for an antidote to the poison of 9/11. SEE International offered me the opportunity to participate in the ancient doctor-patient interaction in its purest form. In May 2002, I was invited by a young Romanian ophthalmologist, Dr. Mihai Cociu, to participate in his efforts to bring state-of-the-art ophthalmic care to Giurgiu, Romania. There, years of poverty have left many needlessly blind in a society trying to awaken from years of communist exploitation.

To document Dr. Cociu's noble and sincere efforts, I asked Lincoln Turner, a professional photographer/ teacher, to dedicate his time to this task. A few samples of his fine photographs illustrate this article.

Both Elizabeth Robbins and Pam Magenheimer from SEE International did their magic organizing the expedition and shepherding an extensive amount of donated medical and surgical supplies to me. These became my personal baggage, some twenty cartons strong.

Greeted in Bucharest by Dr. Cociu, we were chauffeured through Bucharest's wide boulevards and open plazas as our driver highlighted many events, mostly tragic, that had unfolded under Ceaucesceu's regime. The scope of Ceaucesceu's megalomania unfolded vividly as we drove into the center of the city. Several soviet-style buildings stand vast and imposing over a capital that once prided itself as an outpost of Paris in the east. Ceaucesceu's mad destruction of architectural gems is legendary. Now the carcasses of incomplete projects tower over the landscape, many with masonry and rusting equipment piled as though the workmen left for a break and never came back. Ten years have passed since the bloodbath of revolutionary purge, but the problems Ceaucesceu's tyranny brought to Romania still, in large part, remain.

Eventually we arrived at Giurgiu, where the regional hospital desperately needed our attention. We drove in to find a complex of gray stucco buildings kept alive by the familiar need for sanctuary and care. Eventually, we came upon the building that the ophthalmology department shares with that of dermatology and venereal diseases, an odd company of specialties. The main entry opened abruptly into high-ceiling corridors flickering green with fluorescent light. Sparsely covered by government-issued paint, bare pale walls struggled to maintain a welcome.

Corridors formed a spine where ribs of wards took root, furnished with a symmetry of bare iron beds, thin mattresses, and multicolored blankets. The beds slumped as they bore the tired, the aged, and the blind. Attendant relatives gathered around patients, supporting the hope that a ray of fortune might come to break the tedium of blindness.

The operating room was at the end of the corridor. In an adjoining room, two scrub sinks faced several defunct autoclaves. The clatter of faulty plumbing and the drip of leaking faucets broke the stillness as rust bled onto the marble floors. The main operating room contained three operating tables. Rusted handles, bent shafts, and cranks worn clean of their chrome stood frozen, motionless and expectant. Along the wall stood two white enamel cabinets with glass doors revealing a meager content of supplies. Against the opposite wall, a cold white marble slab was set along the room's length to serve as workbench. Hulks of anesthesia equipment were positioned museum-like along the wall as though recalling a past when medicine began to rely upon the sturdiness of consoles, dials, cylinders, and tubes.

In an adjoining room, we unpacked our cargo of supplies and quickly overwhelmed the cabinets and countertops in a cornucopia of plastic and promise, anonymously wrapped sterile instruments, medications, and intraocular lenses. The next morning, as we entered the operating room, Dr. Cociu was already at work interviewing and examining patients most suitable for our intervention. Along the tiled walls of the corridors, patients stood silently, queued in tight groups, heads and eyes lowered.

Dr. Cociu presented the patients to us, sketching the tragic interplay of chance and its burden of blindness. Each case bore a similarity of desperation, one last chance to let some light into lives darkened by bad luck and its evil twin, chronic scarcity. Patients came forward as quickly as their infirmities would allow. Our instruments showed us the scars, irregularities, and imperfections in eyes that stared fixedly and dispassionately. Most of our patients were women whose faces reflected a leathery firmness. They were dressed in a random mix of printed aprons, sweaters, and shawls. Despite Dr. Cociu's frank compassion, many responded as though they stood before a tribunal, perhaps one of Ceaucesceu's. We were reminded how slowly repression loosens its tight grip.

When the examinations were complete, we scrubbed our hands as patients were gently led to the expectant tables covered with fresh linen. Although each surgeon brought his own equipment, instruments were freely shared according to the individual patient's needs. We alternated our role as surgeon, teacher, and assistant to promote the best efficiency and use of skill. Each day, despite fatigue and the relative lack of support personnel, we were able to treat well over 16 patients.

I and the other doctors soon fell into a routine. Coming from a variety of nations, each doctor did what he did best, as the opportunity presented itself. Whether it was preparing the instruments, instructing, operating, repairing the equipment, or seeing the patients before and after the surgery, the work was done in as efficient a manner as the limitations allowed.

This collaboration continued well beyond our repackaging the equipment, dividing it among its various owners. Of the 20 cartons we brought from the U.S., only five containing loaned equipment remained to come back. We had done our work. Yet we were leaving so much to be done and performed with substandard equipment. The sad irony of Dr. Cociu's future of having to treat such a volume of patients without the efficient equipment I was obliged to return, committed me to finding the resources to expand his horizons of good care.

At our last stop before the airport, we met with an American Embassy officer for the Development of American Economic Interests as they pertain to health-related issues. Our idea was to encourage U.S. participation in the clinic site in Giurgiu, either directly through grants or indirectly through corporate sponsorship. We were saddened to have to leave with so much undone. The image of a young girl with eyes disfigured by a squint continues to haunt me. I promised her and many others to return and bring back the supplies and support they would need to enjoy the gift of sight we take for granted.