HEALING WITHOUT BOUNDS

Dr. Veronica Loy brings her expertise from Rush Medical Center to a remote village in Tanzania to help care for patient populations lacking access to basic surgical care.

GIVEN THE PRINCIPLES EMBODIED IN THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH, it’s not surprising that many physicians are motivated by a calling to heal others and hold themselves accountable to the highest standards of care and community good. It’s been part of medical culture for centuries. But when Dr. Veronica Loy, Medical Director of Liver Transplant at Rush Medical Center, describes how she feels driven to give to those in need in the Chicagoland area, it’s hard not to appreciate the profound depth of her caregiving spirit.

“I’m very proud to work in a place that really cares about serving the community. The patient population is incredibly diverse. A lot [of my patients] are impoverished and face serious socioeconomic issues,” Loy says. “I have always really been drawn to that. I am not delusional, but doing my best to minimize disparities in healthcare has always been incredibly important to me.”

Loy fell in love with the transplant specialty in medical school when she went on rotation. “You see someone who’s really sick,” she says. “And you become a part of their life at that really vulnerable moment. And once someone has a transplant, you really are with these people for their whole life.”

For Loy, who grew up in Grand Rapids and graduated from the University of Michigan before attending medical school at Midwestern University outside of Chicago, that sense of family and purpose was a constant throughline in her life and career. It’s what led her to expand her view beyond the needs of American patients to those suffering halfway around the world.

Before she began her new role at Rush last September, Loy had been the Medical Director of Transplants at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee. The GI Department had a partnership with a hospital in Rwanda, and three years ago Loy took the opportunity for a medical mission to help train that country’s first native-born gastroenterologist. She continues to give quarterly lectures remotely to Rwandan physicians.

“Doing that reminded me of my younger self,” she recalls. “It reminded me of a lot of things that really mattered to me that I had unfortunately brushed aside to focus on my career, serve my patients to the best of my ability, and raise a young family.”

So it was a natural evolution when she found herself in the office of Rush’s Liver Transplant Surgical Director, Dr. Edie Chan, late last year staring at a bag of medical supplies in the corner of the room.

“I asked her what it was for, and she told me it was for Operation International, for whom Chan founded the Chicago chapter in 2019. I was like, ‘well, someday you have to bring me with you.’ And two days later she asked, ‘do you want to come?'”

At first, Loy was concerned about how she’d be able to pull off the trip, given her patient and family responsibilities. She and her husband, Jason, have two kids in Lake Forest Schools: Benny, who’s 8, attends Cherokee Elementary, and Millie, who’s 11, attends Deer Path Middle.

Despite her trepidation, Jason, a Managing Director at business advisory firm Riveron, didn’t skip a beat before declaring “you have to go.” The two of them had spent the early years in their relationship traveling and going on adventures, and he knew how important it was for her to dig into this opportunity. On top of the instant family support, Loy said local parents also offered to step in and help wherever they could. It’s something that Loy loves about the North Shore community. Friends and neighbors step in, support each other, and lift each other up.

“The community here is incredible,” Loy says. “They’re supportive of each other reaching their dreams and goals. There are people here who are trying to explore the world, make a difference, but still caring so much for their kids, families, and each other.”

As for the mission itself, Loy will be a part of a group of 22 members traveling to a remote village in Tanzania to perform a range of surgeries for a populace that has no access to care for a range of issues, from general surgery to craniofacial procedures to ENT. They’ll repair cleft lips, fix hernias, and conduct critical cancer surgeries. The team, led by Chan, will bring everything they need along with them, from the staff to the equipment, because the local hospital is not equipped for anything but routine checkups and consultations.

“These hospitals don’t look like the hospitals we have,” Loy says. “We bring everything. We bring all the supplies. The surgical equipment. Every setting is a mystery until you get there. In Rwanda, for example, there were probably 60 patients in one big open room. So it’s really incredibly different.”

The goal is to perform 80 or more surgeries in a week, starting with screening hundreds of people who are waiting. The patients know the medical teams are coming, and they queue for days to get an appointment for whatever is ailing them. While the mission team may see some of the patients on a subsequent visit, many patients leave the recovery room and go back to their village, some many hours away, having been given a new lease on their life and the medical staff won’t see them again. It’s a very moving experience.

“It makes me feel whole again,” Loy says, the gratitude palpable in the way she talks about it.

The group’s work is 100 percent supported by private donors. There’s a gala each March, and otherwise funding comes from individual and corporate donations throughout the year.

The team operates leanly and they make every dollar count.

It’s the kind of initiative that can lead to a transformative change in point of view, especially considering the overall resources and capability of the American health care system.

“I feel they helped me more than I helped them,” Loy says, reflecting on her Rwanda trip. “I taught them about liver disease, but I think they taught me very important life lessons.”

It’s something that shapes the team members for life and impacts how they see medical care back in their home communities.

And speaking of home, Loy never loses sight of how special her beautiful suburban enclave is. Which is why, despite the many demands on her time, she recently joined the Associate Board of Lake Forest Open Lands.

“One thing I really love about here is the nature,” she says. “I think that’s incredibly healing and important for people’s health. That is why I volunteer at Open Lands.”

She and her family love to take advantage of the beaches and trails, grounding themselves in the quiet and beauty of the area. Which seems fitting, given the intensity of Loy’s chosen career path. Being able to pause and take stock brings focus to the work she does—here and overseas.

“I come home with a very different perspective and more grateful. You know, here we gripe about the little annoyances. And you go away and return with a renewed perspective, like ‘wow, we really have just a phenomenal life here.'” Loy encourages others to consider the power of giving on stress reduction, increased happiness and a sense of purpose.

To learn more about Operation International and the work of the Chicago team, or to make a donation, visit operationinternational.org/teams/chicago.