Pay It Forward: Giving back through medical missions

For 37 years, Philips Software Quality Engineer Ed Myers has worked in the medical device field, testing software on a range of products from patient monitors to central stations as he rose through the ranks from project management to consultancy.

In that time, Myers has also spent years volunteering his expertise to medical mission work, often through the nonprofit humanitarian group, Assist International. He’s been on at least a dozen trips to places as far-flung as Hungary, Kazakhstan, Djibouti, and Ukraine, managing and participating in projects designed to help improve the standard of care at healthcare facilities that lack the richness of resources typically available in the United States.

Groups like Assist International count on Myers not only being able to help maintain and install the equipment once it’s onsite but also to tap into his network of corporate sponsors and medical professionals to help source donations and material contributions to the cause.

“Working in the field, you learn how to sell an idea,” he said. “If you ask people they are interested in saving lives, that’s a tough one for people to refuse.”

Sometimes a photograph is all that’s needed to make the point — like the one he captured of babies in a hospital in Kiev, who were born with congenital heart defects as a result of the Chernobyl accident.

“These little babies were strapped down to keep them from pulling their patient cables out,” Myers said. “If they would go into arrest or desaturate, they would get the alarm, and the nurses would respond accordingly.”

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