Doctor hopes for borderless world
Speaker advocates travel, creativity, Frisbees
Published on Tue., April 24th, 2007
Richard Heinzl stressed the importance of creativity and discussed transformation in a rapidly changing borderless world in a lecture Monday night in the Kansas Union.
Heinzl created Doctors Without Borders Canada, based on the European Medecins Sans Frontieres, after extensive work in Cambodia and Turkey where he medically assisted the countries’ people and refugees.
“Change is this new constant,” Heinzl said. “You have got to recognize this, so you can jump at it and not let it slip by.”
The Doctors Without Borders program provides humanitarian medical aid to impoverished people in Third World countries.
The lecture, “Lessons from Abroad: The Opportunities of a Borderless World,” sponsored by Student Health Services and Student Union Activities. It was a Ralph Canuteson memorial lecture and a part of Student Health Services’ centennial celebration. Canuteson was the first doctor for Student Health Services and ran the program from 1928 to 1965.
Heinzl spoke to about 200 people about anecdotes from his experiences abroad and the lessons he learned about medical humanitarianism.
He detailed his first experience abroad in facing the arrival of a hundred thousand Kurdish refugees fleeing toward his base camp in Turkey during the early 1990s. Shortly after their arrival to the site, Heinzl and his three colleagues were informed that they would be providing all humanitarian assistance to the refugees.
“We just stared at each other, trying to look confident,” Heinzl said. “Our jaws dropped, and we just pushed them back up.”
He said none of them had done this before, but they knew they were going to have to find a way. Experiences like these, Heinzl said, taught him the most.
“Success can be a poor teacher,” Heinzl said. “I was lucky to have role models who said it was okay to be non-conventional and who applauded creativity.”
When in Cambodia, Heinzl described the most exciting day for the townspeople — the day a Frisbee arrived in the mail. He said the kids learned very quickly how to use it and eventually how to bring new ones across the Thai border.
“Our world is so borderless,” Heinzl said. “Even the little Frisbees can diffuse almost effortlessly worldwide.”
Technology is “double-exponentially” growing around the world, Heinzl said because the curve of new technology was so extreme. So many people are smart and capable to learn new things, especially children, he said, and half the population is under 20 years old, which shows that young people are very capable of turning into something extraordinary.
“The world’s youth is essential,” Heinzl said. “In a blink of an eye, those kids are our world’s future.”
Heinzl encouraged the young people in the audience to take a year off and travel and do something artistic and altruistic. He said it used to be viewed as frivolous to get education in one area, but work in another.
He said none of them had done this before, but they knew they were going to have to find a way. Experiences like these, Heinzl said, taught him the most.
“Now, being non-conventional is sometimes a successful way to go,” Heinzl said. “When you’re handed a piece of lined paper, write the other way.”
Marisa DeGennaro, Overland Park junior, and friend Erin Perkins, Olathe junior, were both drawn to the lecture because of their interests in this profession. Both pre-medicine students, DeGennaro and Perkins were impressed by the inspiration and the humanitarianism Heinzl provided in his lecture.
DeGennaro said she was interested in international medicine because she wanted to connect to people who were different, but still the same. “When you get down to it, everyone in the world is the same,” DeGennaro said. “We’re all human, with the same hopes, dreams, and aspirations.”
Kansan staff writer Danae DeShazer can be contacted at ddeshazer@kansan.com.
— Edited by Sharla Shivers
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