After Africa, they choose a medical career

After helping on two medical missions in Africa, Cathy Kayne decided to become a registered nurse – and that she did at 56 years of age.

The Culver City resident is part of a lesser touted statistic for Lighthouse Medical Missions: the number of volunteers who make medicine a profession.

To date, there are at least three doctors and half a dozen nurses who got their first taste of dispensing medicines in the hinterlands of West Africa where the word “acute” defines medical needs almost as much as “chronic.”

Kayne went to Sierra Leone in the spring of 2005 and to Burundi in the summer of 2008 to help in a logistics capacity

“It brought me a lot of joy to be out in the field and involved in helping people in a medical capacity,” Kayne said. “It caused an old childhood dream to resurface. I had wanted to be a nurse but didn't get the chance to pursue it. When I went to Africa, I realized this is what I'm supposed to be doing.”

Talk about late bloomer. Kayne STARTED the rigorous course study for nursing at Santa Monica College when she was 50 years old and had four kids. She just graduated and is now studying for the 6-hour board exam in September.

Lighthouse Medical Missions tends to stir up strong passions in the people who boldly take the adventure. It is run by Dr. Bob Hamilton, a famous Santa Monica pediatrician who spends almost as much time inviting his patients to join missions as he does attending to them.

Dr. Bob transmits zeal so well that people who never would have ventured out of the safety and convenience of America often find themselves on a bumpy dirt roads swatting at disease-bearing mosquitoes in Timbuktu (actually not too far from there). Generally, they thank Dr. Bob, and some make it more than just an erstwhile good deed.

“This was not just a whim,” Kayne said. “I'm too old to be following whims. I didn't want to start such a draining career unless it was a God thing. I didn't go into this for the money. The biggest thing is to touch people's lives with the love of God.”

Lighthouse Medical Missions does not discriminate. It attends to people of all faiths with the same love, the same quality and the same medicines, regardless of whether they are Muslim, Hindu or atheist.

But Christian faith is what inspired Dr. Bob and scores of the volunteers to pour crazy hours – and sometimes even their savings – into it.

For Kayne, inspiration came from a Biblical passage that teaches Christians to help the less fortunate: “Whatever you do the 'least of these,'” Jesus says, “you have done to Me.”

With her fresh parchment under her arm, Kayne is now gearing up for her third medical mission, this time to Guatemala. A team of 15 doctors, nurses, translators and others are scheduled to hit coffee-producing misty city of Coban during Oct. 17-21.

Lighthouse Medical Missions has completed over 20 missions since it started in 1997 with a trip to Nicaragua. While its birth was in Central America, it quickly pivoted its heft and girth to Africa, where the need was markedly greater. Team members have staged 20 missions to Africa. They've supported churches, schools and water wells.

With a trip to Guatemala last year, Lighthouse Medical Missions has come full circle, back to Central America where it was born. The reason for targeting Guatemala is to make it accessible to high school students, particularly from the same-name associated school Lighthouse Christian Academy. Dr. Bob loves to inspire people to opt for the medical career.

The Africa work continues unquestioned. Its berth on the calendar is for the spring. Lighthouse Medical Mission's principal fundraiser is named after Africa, the Walk to Africa walkathon in the Spring.

But the visit to the Land of the Eternal Spring can attract new volunteers with its easy travel – only five hours, compared to the 30-hour marathon relay of LAX-Chicago-Brussells-Senegal-final destination.

Now on the brink of two decades, Lighthouse Medical Missions has visited at least nine countries and attended to easily more than 50,000 patients.

Alleviating desperation is the heart-rending motivation. But for Dr. Bob, a lesser known, heart-warming motivation is to get people into the medical profession. No doubt, he'll be feeling proud of Kayne's participation in Guatemala.