Seniors Serve During Spring Break

 

Above: The team of doctors, nurses and volunteers: Mary Puccioni '25, Dr. Emily Kean, Dr. Rebecca McCrery, Dr. David Crotzer, Julia Crotzer '27, Cece Crotzer '25 and Ellen Crotzer '23.

Story by Elena Burt '25

With scrub caps and scalpels, seniors Cece Crotzer and Mary Puccioni spent their spring break in a surgery center in Guatemala to help out their parents on a service trip. The team of doctors did this through an organization called Faith in Practice.

Crotzer’s mom, Dr. Rebecca McCrery, and Puccioni’s mom, Dr. Emily Kean, are urogynecologists; Crotzer’s dad, Dr. David Crotzer, is a gynecological oncologist. These three surgeons worked together to help numerous women in Guatemala live better lives through procedures to their reproductive organs. 

These seniors and their parents, along with Crotzer’s two sisters, were there for a whole week during spring break. For four of those days, they were in the hospital. Crotzer said, “the first day was spent in the clinic.” 

Crotzer and Puccioni had jobs; Crotzer wrote daily blogs and would interview patients through translators, and Puccioni captured the trip through taking many pictures. However, this was not their only job. 

“I knew we were gonna be helping out a lot, and I knew there were going to be long days. We woke up at 5:30 every day and were at the hospital until about 2:30,” Puccioni said. “They were really long days, but honestly it was so worth it because it was so fulfilling to see all of them so happy.” The patients were grateful for every surgery. 

“On the first and second day, we observed, but on the third day, we actually got to scrub in and assist,” Puccioni said. “We would suction blood, cut sutures, inject some things and make small incisions.” Doing this helped Puccioni and Crotzer further define their desires to have careers in the medical field. 

This surgery center is a hot spot in Guatemala. Patients voyaged long distances to receive care from these doctors. “Some of them walked 12 hours,” Puccioni said. Crotzer noted, “It was a 4-hour drive [for most patients], but not all of them had cars, so they had to walk.” 

The commitment also included recovery time, often keeping these women away from their home obligations for a longer period of time. 

“They also had this place called ‘Casa de Fe,’ which means ‘house of faith,’ and that’s where they would stay, because you can only be in the hospital in post-op for so long, but for some people, it was a 12 hour walk home, and if you just got a hysterectomy, then you’re going to have to be in recovery for a while and you can’t walk that distance, so they stayed in this house. It’s like the Ronald McDonald house but in Guatemala,” Puccioni said. 

“Basically all the patients were getting hysterectomies,” Crotzer said. A hysterectomy is the removal of the uterus. Many of the women they treated and will treat in Guatemala have complications, tumors, stretched out tissue and more painful additions to their reproductive organs. 

“There was a time that my dad couldn’t do a hysterectomy because the girl had too many [complications], but he was able to help her with something else, and even though she didn’t necessarily get what she was fully hoping for, she was still so grateful and was brought to tears with gratitude,” Crotzer said. 

“They’re just all so happy, and I know language is definitely a barrier, but you can just tell how happy they are because they’ll just give you a hug or hold your hand—just those little pieces of compassion and thankfulness really warmed our hearts,” Puccioni said. 

The patients appreciated the time, skill and supplies that these surgeons and high school helpers donated. “All of the surgeries were almost completely free for them. It ended up being like four [American] bucks,” Crotzer said. “The funding for the hospital and Casa de Fe comes completely from donations.”

“Mine and Mary’s moms brought down a lot of the supplies that they were going to use,” Crotzer said. “The hospital, since it’s mostly volunteers, has new people coming in every single week, so there’s always stuff going on, and they’re always getting a consistent flow of money, so that’s how it’s funded,” Puccioni noted. 

Coming from the US, a highly funded country, to serving in the small city of Antigua, Guatemala gave these girls a new perspective on life. 

“For me, it made me more appreciative of the small things… Nothing there is modernized and you see a level of poverty that you don’t really see in the states, and it made me more grateful for the things I have. It changed my perspective on how other people are going through worse things, and it humbled me,” Puccioni said. 

“It made me so grateful for what advancements we have in the US, and it just made me realize how many countries around the world don’t necessarily have all the technology and schooling,” Crotzer said. 

Crotzer and Puccioni said they feel abundantly grateful for this experience, and definitely want to go back next year.