In April, Dr. Robert Treft stood in a makeshift eye exam room in a rural clinic in Chahal, Guatemala. Sitting on the other side of the donated biomicroscope in front of him was a man who had sustained a lacerated cornea two days earlier.
The eye injury was painful and now badly infected. With each beat of the patient’s heart, inner ocular fluid poured from the open corneal wound. Dr. Treft knew that if he did not immediately correct the problem, the man would lose his sight within days.
Dr. Treft was able to close the laceration using a special corneal wound contact lens he just happened to have brought with him. Then, using antibiotics donated by Holy Cross Hospital – Davis, he created eye drops the patient could use to treat his eye on a daily basis to clear the infection and ensure proper healing. After the surgery, Dr. Treft trained two local nurses who work in the clinic on how to remove the contact lens a month later, since he could not be there.
Decades of Dedication
Dr. Treft is part of Utah Medical Outreach, a group of physicians, nurses at Holy Cross Hospital – Davis, and other volunteers who travel to rural Guatemala every six months to provide ENT, ophthalmological, obstetric, general medical, anesthesia, general surgical and podiatric care to the poor Q’eqchi farmers in the region. Residents there have very rare access to medical care. Those colleagues include Drs. Ryan Meacham, Brian Richards, Steve Meek, John Braun, Melvin Richardson, Clark Peterson, Brian Richman; Jolene Lloyd, RN; and surgical techs Robert Michaels and Chris Ross.
During the weeklong trip in April 2025, the group saw 3,000 patients and performed 46 operations. The group has been making these humanitarian medical trips for more than 30 years.
Dr. Treft remembers another young patient, this one 7 years old.
“This sweet little girl came to see the Ear, Nose, and Throat surgeon, Dr. Ryan Meacham,” Dr. Treft recalled. “She only spoke about seven words. Her family wondered if she was mentally slow or if she ‘did not have good hearing’ because she was always slow to respond to vocal commands.
“After carefully examining her, Dr. Meacham pulled out a $25 simple hearing aid he had purchased on Amazon. When he gently pushed it into her ear canal, she got a bright smile and for the first time in her life, she could hear voices and the things creating noise around her! Her life has been drastically changed by that simple act of knowledgeable care!”
Another example was a 9-year-old boy with a cleft lip. He traveled by foot for seven hours with his parents and a younger sibling – leaving at 1 a.m in order to get to the clinic first thing. They made a brief stop at a market to get the boy some new white socks to wear when seeing the doctor. The staff remembers how proud he was of his new footwear.
Ingenuity in Action
The team of health care professionals has learned to be resourceful in conditions very different from those back home in Layton. For example, the group hangs sticky paper to keep flies out of the clinic. Sometimes they have to chase dogs out of the Operating Room. On this last trip, Dr. Treft’s ophthalmic microscope went missing, so he had to improvise by using an ENT microscope without lighting. In order to see his intricate surgery, he created the light he needed by zip-tying two headlamps to the optical arm of the microscope.
Jolene Lloyd, a nurse at Holy Cross Hospital – Davis, has participated in the Guatemala humanitarian efforts for 17 years.
“Initially I went to Guatemala to share my medical knowledge with others. In return I have gained far more than I have given,” she said.
She and her colleagues often take toys to give to the children who show up at the clinic.
Dr. Treft knows firsthand the blessing of great medical care. Six years ago he was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer that typically has a 10-month survival rate of only 2 percent. He was able to quickly see a highly trained, brilliant oncologist at Holy Cross - Davis and start aggressive treatment more quickly than most patients. He’s grateful for a positive outcome that has allowed him to travel with his wife, including a recent cruise to Africa, and to spend quality time with his 14 grandchildren.
Why They Keep Coming Back
So why does Dr. Treft join his colleagues in going to Guatemala every six months – at their own expense?
“I feel like I have been very blessed to live here in the States and have access to great medical care,” he said. “I am very blessed to have received a first-rate, amazing medical education that prepared me in an incredible way to take care of people’s medical needs. I have devoted my life to trying to make a difference for good in the world, utilizing the skills and talents that I have been given. I have been so very blessed! So to actively continue to do that for people who desperately need it is always a fulfilling, enriching, and blessed thing that I can do.”
