Healthcare heroes.

• Author: Lindberg, Kelly J.P.
• Position: Focus - Includes related article

Volunteer Dr. Catherine deVries

The 15-year-old twin boys Dr. Catherine deVries met on her first trip to Honduras 10 years ago faced a bleak future. Both had severe hypospadias, a birth defect that put the urethral opening in the wrong place. In Honduras, where doctors and medical technology are scarce, the boys hadn't received the reconstructive surgery that is fairly common for infants in the United States. Without surgery, they would never get married or father children.

But deVries, now a pediatric urologist at Primary Children's Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine, changed all that.

In 1995, deVries co-founded International Volunteers in Urology, Inc., which sends doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists from across the United States to developing countries, where they provide urological care and information to patients and doctors. They treat patients with genital birth defects, prostate disease, childbirth injuries and other urological problems that often cause both physical pain I disgrace.

DeVries donates at least 30 hours a week to running IVU (in addition to the same amount of hours she puts in at her regular practice at the hospital), and personally goes on five or six trips a year to places such as Haiti, Mongolia, Africa and Vietnam. "The work is sheer joy," she says, despite the demanding schedule.

And the twins? "Not only did they get married," says deVries happily, "but one of them has children."

`Actitioner brad wiggins

Surviving a serious burn goes far beyond physical recovery. The scars that pucker and stretch across your body or face are a public reminder of the pain. "Teenagers especially have a hard time" says Brad Wiggins, B.S.N., clinical nurse coordinator at the Intermountain Burn Trauma Center at the University of Utah Hospital. "They get called Freddy Kruger or Frankenstein. When you're a teenager, you've got self-esteem problems, dating--everything is so difficult anyway, and then to be burned is even worse."

For 10 years, in addition to being a Burn Center nurse, Wiggins has been bringing burn survivors together to counter the depression and feelings of isolation many suffer. For kids age 6 to 11, he holds a three-day sleep-over camp. Teens and adults go on week-long river trips. "Getting them on the river with other people who have had the same experience is really important," he says. "They're so happy to be with someone they can let their guard down with."

On the teen river trips, Wiggins takes 17 kids and eight...