Kilauea’s Dr. Jeffrey C. Goodman, who works out of Kaua’i Medical Group’s North Shore Clinic, is again heading for the Middle East on a medical mission of mercy.
He leaves for Kuwait City this Thursday, April 10, his 58th birthday, and will again join up with other volunteer medical-care professionals in International Medical Corps, a non-governmental, non-political organization whose members conduct humanitarian medical missions.
After a grueling airline schedule that will bring him from Lihu’e to Kuwait City, he will journey by land into Iraq, where he will help establish medical clinics, train doctors and other health-care professionals, supply medications and other supplies, and generally work to upgrade and improve that country’s health-care system.
This is the fourth such mission for Goodman, whose work in Afghanistan last year helped establish 20 medical clinics in two months whose staffs now see 27,000 patients a month.
Earlier this week, U.S. military officials felt they had enough control of Iraq to make a decision to allow non-governmental humanitarian aid to begin flowing.
For Goodman, the decision to travel again to a country that is also a war zone was a simple one. “Who else is going to do it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I worry about it,” he said about journeying into a war zone. “But, there’s not much you can really do except watch your p’s and q’s.
“It’s a rough world out there, there’s no question. But if we watch what we do,” we’ll be fine, he said. “So, yeah, I’m concerned. There’s no question I’m concerned,” he said. “I’m not overly concerned,” said Goodman. “It makes life exciting.”
His sons, Eric and Jason, both adults on the Mainland, are used to hearing from their father news that he’ll be journeying to the Middle East on another humanitarian mission.
His father, though, asked him why he wouldn’t consider waiting until the hostilities died down a bit before deciding to make the trip.
“You can’t sit back and wait for the other guy to do it a lot of the times. Sometimes, you have to get in there and do it yourself,” he said of his decision and the timing.
“I have had some experience helping to set up clinics and health information systems to determine what the health problems are, and look for solutions to those problems,” he said.
“There will be a lot of training as well, working with the Iraqi doctors. I don’t know the culture of Iraq, so I have been doing a lot of reading.”
While the humanitarian side of the work is extremely rewarding, there are personal motives as well, he admitted. “I also do it for me. This gives me a real sense of purpose.”
Goodman has the wholehearted support of his employer, again, on his latest mission. “Wilcox Health is proud of his dedication and courage to take up this humanitarian cause, to help a war-torn country regain its health,” said Lani Yukimura, a spokesperson for Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Kaua’i Medical Clinic.
“He is an outstanding physician, very much loved by his patients, admired by his peers,” she said.
Goodman said he appreciates support from his employer as well.
“I can’t say enough about the Wilcox Health System regarding their support” for his missions. “It puts a hardship on them” when a clinical doctor decides to go on a three-month humanitarian mission halfway around the world, “and they have been more than supportive,” said Goodman.
Dr. Arthur Bronstein will be filling in during Goodman’s absence. Goodman will be back to work on Wednesday, July 16.
Goodman’s other missions have taken him to Pakistan and Afghanistan (twice), so his patients weren’t surprised to hear he was packing his bags again.
“A lot of these people are my friends as well as patients, and they know that I like to do this kind of thing. They followed the trip to Afghanistan,” so they weren’t shocked to hear of Goodman’s most recent travel plans.
“For the most part, my patients know me well enough to know that this is a big part of my life.”
Goodman, a family physician, has been with the Kaua’i Medical Clinic since 1972. In June 2001, with his wife Linda, he designed a larger clinic to make room for visiting specialists so that the North Shore community would have access to better health care.
With his own money, he expanded and renovated the clinic.
Within months of the blessing of the newly renovated building, his wife, Linda Goodman, passed away. The building was later dedicated to Linda Goodman, Dr. Goodman’s wife of 32 years.
Goodman was born in Los Angeles, and holds a doctorate from the medical school of Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., after attending Loyola University of Los Angeles.
A member of the International Society of Travel Medicine and the International Leptospirosis Society, he enjoys photography, ikebana, fishing, camping, astronomy and raising orchids in his spare time. The Web site www.imc-la.com provides updates on the work being done in Iraq.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
