MINNEAPOLIS, March 6, 2008—A feature in the West Central Tribune depicts a Minnesota physician, one of a team of about 100 providers from our state, who spent a week recently providing care in the Philippines.

Marty Janning, M.D., an ear-nose-throat specialist with a private practice in Willmar, recently spent a week bringing care to people on the island of Cebu.

“It makes you a lot more grateful for simple things,” Janning told the paper. “I really wish my kids or any kids could experience this.”

Organized by the Philippine-Minnesotan Medical Association, more than 100 volunteer physicians, nurses and other staff made the trip in late January.

The primary care physicians alone saw 5,500 patients in four days. The team performed more than 100 major surgeries and 150 minor surgeries.

Large tents were set up at Sacred Heart Hospital in Cebu City. Patients stood in the heat and humidity waiting to be seen.

Janning, the sole ear-nose-throat specialist in the group, did nearly two dozen surgeries, mostly on people’s thyroids. He worked with the minimum of tools for procedures such as removing nasal polyps.

Back at the Janning Ear, Nose and Throat Center in Willmar, he’s applying the lessons he learned in the Philippines.

"The people I saw have so little but they seem so happy. They’re so appreciative. Everything you did, they’d thank you and thank you. It was so humbling. That’s really what kept you going.”

Full West Central Tribune article