Michael Barringer-Mills’ interest in pursuing a career in humanitarian work started innocently enough with a college course on the history of the Holocaust.

Barringer-Mills said he was a junior at the University of Kansas when he learned the background of genocide and the parallels with the humanitarian catastrophes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early 90s. This revelation made him consider opportunities to stop human suffering.

“It really struck a chord with me,” said Barringer-Mills. “I was really inspired to do that kind of work as a KU undergrad. It just took me a few years to figure out how to do that.”

After graduating from the University in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in history, Barringer-Mills said he bounced from job to job. He eventually worked in construction in Minnesota, but his dream of helping others wasn’t over. As it turned out, his experience in construction helped him land a logistical position with the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.

“I felt I had been working for a few years and was interested in the idea of engaging in a wider world,” Barringer-Mills said. “That was something that had been a goal of mine before graduating from undergrad. To me, it felt like a now or never type of thing because I finally had the skills necessary.”

Monday evening, Barringer-Mills spoke to students about his experiences in Doctors Without Borders in his lecture, “Mèdicins Sans Frontières and Shrinking Humanitarian Space,” and discussed the health care situations in developing countries he visited.

Humanities and Western Civilization director James Woelfel and his wife, Sarah Trulove, traveled abroad with Barringer-Mills when he was a student. Woelfel said he and his wife saw Barringer-Mills’ fascination with finding out more about the world and his place in the world.

“We both saw, in him, a very bright, well-informed, questioning and searching sort of person,” Woelfel said.

Barringer-Mills said Woelfel and Trulove were integral in bringing him back to visit the University. After deciding to pursue humanitarian work, Barringer-Mills researched organizations such as the Peace Corps, Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders on the Internet. He eventually settled on Doctors Without Borders because of the complexity and importance of the work the organization undertakes in countries with unique situations, internal conflict and, many times, civil war.

Barringer-Mills began his Doctors Without Borders career in 2004 as a logistician in Darfur, and has also served in Sudan, Congo, Uganda and Nigeria. His duties included coordinating supplies for the organization in Sudan, coordinating a vaccination campaign during a meningitis outbreak in northern Nigeria and serving as a 72-bed trauma center director in the midst of urban violence in the Niger Delta in Nigeria.

“I think we are in a unique position to get to places where nobody else is,” he said. “Frequently we are the only ones around so we are able to make a real, physical and immediate difference in the lives of our patients.”

Barringer-Mills said that working in such volatile situations could be dangerous, but that Doctors Without Borders relies on impartial treatment and steadfast neutrality to avoid violent conflict among warring factions. Doctors Without Borders workers are unarmed and are not accompanied by guards, he said.

Barringer-Mills said one of the most dangerous situations he had experienced was during his time in the Niger Delta when the urban violence surrounding them restrained the organizations ability to exit their compound.

“The danger was in traveling,” he said. “Nobody can anticipate a stray bullet. We had to stay within the confines of our hospital for four days. Our biggest concern, frankly, was not for our own safety than it was for the ability of our patients to reach us.”

Barringer-Mills said the demands of working in the field with Doctors Without Borders attracted committed health professionals and humanitarian workers from all over the globe. He said he met his wife while working with the organization.

Barringer-Mills is attending graduate school at the University of Minnesota, with plans to return to work with Doctors Without Borders upon graduation. He said although he had to take breaks from the field to stay motivated, his previous work with Doctors Without Borders and the work that he will do in the future continued to motivate him to help others.

“It’s work that I really believe matters,” he said. “It makes a concrete, real difference in people’s lives.”

— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld