Lifeline to Peru: Des Peres Doctor on a Mission

A Des Peres doctor has been high in the Andes and deep in the Amazon rainforest on a mission to bring medical care to the poor in Peru.

Dr. James Petersen, who specializes in gastroenterology, has traveled to Peru with the Peruvian American Medical Society (PAMS) six times in the last 12 years.

“It gives me a better appreciation for life and what’s important in life,” Petersen said. “It’s all about human contact. Some people are poor as can be and are a lot happier than people I know with lots of money.”

PAMS was founded in 1973 to bring medical resources to underserved populations in Peru. Since then, the organization has sent more than 100 medical and educational missions to that South American nation.

Doctors, nurses, dentists and other volunteers travel at their own expense. They help train local doctors on the latest techniques and deliver donated medical equipment, supplies and medicine to help upgrade medical care there.

Petersen, who lives in New Melle and works at the in Des Peres, joined his first mission in 1999. He got started with PAMS through his friendship with Dr. Anibal Zambrano, a St. Louis cardiologist who grew up in Peru and leads regular missions to his hometown of Cajamarca.

“Just like most third-world countries, there’s a rich class and a poor class,” Petersen said, adding that the people he treats are grateful for the attention.

“The people are very nice,” he said. “ They’re happy to see doctors from North America coming down. They almost cry because they think they are the forgotten people and nobody cares.”

Many of the patients he treats are subsistence farmers or unemployed; some are homeless or living in mud houses. Some live in villages far from medical care or just can’t afford treatment.

Sometimes treatment is available but the equipment is out of date or supplies are limited, Petersen said.

On his most recent trip to Peru this summer, Petersen traveled with Zambrano to Chincha, which was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 2007. With the help of PAMS, a new medical center was built and began providing care earlier this year.

After Petersen’s first mission in 1999, Petersen told Zambrano he would like to go again but, with three school-aged children, found it difficult to get away for two weeks.

Petersen said it would be easier if he could take along at least one of his children. So in 2003, he took along his son Joe, who was 11 at the time.

It worked out so well that now volunteers regularly bring spouses or children along to visit and bring donations to children in orphanages. Over the years, the volunteers have set up a computer center at an orphanage, taught English lessons or just played with the kids and gave them love.

“That’s become a big part of it,” Petersen said.

Cajamarca, where Zambrano was born and raised, is high up in the Andes Mountains. Petersen has also has traveled on missions to Iquitos in the jungle on the Amazon River and Chincha on the Pacific Coast.