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VIMM provides medical service to nations in need by Weslynn Chubb Public Relations Performing surgery under the mere shelter of trees with flies swarming around the operating table is not what many medical professionals visualize when heading in for a busy day at work. For Volunteers in Medical Mission (VIMM), however, this picture is often a harsh reality. Dr. Stoney Abercrombie, right, and members of the VIMM display a sample of their skills, a cast on a 10-year-old Zimbabwe resident. The non-profit organization, which was founded in 1986 with Stoney Abercrombie, M.D., as one of its founders, returned in mid-June from a mission trip in Zimbabwe, where the mission team of 25 saw 6,600 patients in six days. Comprised of eight physicians, one medical student and a host of other medical professionals from nine states, Abercrombie and the group held 18 clinics for the remote area they visited. They performed approximately 50 skin surgeries, treated various ailments and distributed 1,000 pairs of  eyeglasses, all services which the average Zimbabwean cannot afford or reach. VIMM has provided such needed medical services for underserved nations around the world such as Mexico, Tanzania, Peru, Russia and China. In its 15 years of service, the organization has treated more than 150,000 people at an estimated value of $20 million, and this month another team will embark on the organization’s 100th trip, which will be going to Honduras. Volunteers from MUSC and from across the nation have worked with the mission. In an effort to provide ongoing care for areas in desperate need, VIMM has also set up nine medical clinics in the nations of Tanzania, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Vietnam and Chile. Many of the clinics were built by construction teams that VIMM organized, while some foreign nations donated buildings for VIMM to use in order to set up their clinics. The organization, which is now finishing its clinic in Tanzania, is aiming to establish one clinic per year in an area of great need, Abercrombie says. Abercrombie, who is also a professor of Family Medicine at MUSC and the executive director of the Area Health Education Consortium, has made 38 trips with VIMM. He says that his trips with the mission have been great learning and cultural experiences, and he encourages medical professionals of all fields to get involved with the program. “When you see kids dying who have been deprived of basic things like food, it touches you,” Abercrombie says. “I think it [volunteering] makes us better people.” For more information on the program and how to get involved, call (800) 615-8695 or visit the VIMM Web site at <http://www.vimm.org>.