Eduardo Zambrano’s spare office in Stanford Hospital displays
some of the essentials of his pathology practice: a large microscope which
dominates his desktop and a cabinet overflowing with colorful, hand-painted
wooden boxes, each one representing a Latin American child with cancer.
Over the last 12 years, Zambrano, MD, has received as many as 1,000
tumor samples from pediatric oncologists in Venezuela and other Latin American
countries who treat desperately poor young patients with various forms of
cancer. Each sample is carried on a glass slide or embedded in wax, then
carefully wrapped in tissue paper and lovingly packaged in a wooden box painted
by a patient’s mother or local artisan as a gesture of gratitude. The boxes are
covered in suns, stars, flowers and other images of life and hope.
“To me, behind each one of
these boxes is a child with cancer, and to know we’ve been able to help them is
very special to me,” said Zambrano, chief of pathology at Lucile
Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. An expert in pediatric solid tumors, he
volunteers his service on behalf of these youngsters.
A professor of pediatrics and of pathology who came to Stanford a year
ago, he said he receives one or two of these boxes a week. He examines the
samples under the microscope and then issues a diagnosis, some involving rare
cancers. Clinicians ship the samples to him because in these low-resourced
countries, they don’t have the means to accurately diagnose the problem. “Very frequently the diagnosis (from the
home country) is either incomplete because they don’t have the resources to
perform confirmatory tests or it’s wrong because they don’t have expertise in
pediatric tumors,” he said. “It’s
frequent that I have to give them a significantly different diagnosis than what
they sent.”
Among the most common tumors he sees are pediatric sarcomas, which can
originate in various parts of the body; neuroblastomas; lymphomas; and brain
tumors. Though he has reviewed cases from Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil and his
native country of Ecuador, many of the samples come from Venezuela, where he
has a longstanding collaboration with a pediatric oncologist whom he texts or
emails every day. She also sends him many photos of children in recovery, as
well as notes of thanks: “You are a little angel who helps all of
us,” reads one in Spanish.
Zambrano also has visited Venezuela and met some of his patients and
their families, but in recent years, the country, worn down by years of oppressive
governance, has become too dangerous for travel, he said. “It’s a tragedy in Venezuela,” which is now one of the southern
continent’s poorest countries, he said. “For
me, it’s really an obligation to provide this service to them and a way to pay
back for what I received in my childhood in South America.” Because some of
the cases he diagnoses are rare or advanced forms of cancer not often seen
here, they also serve as valuable teaching tools, he said. “These cases have served me tremendously in teaching my residents,”
he said. Zambrano said the work is a
particularly rewarding part of his day. “I
consider it very valuable, and it’s something that really moves me,” he
said. “A lot of meaning would be lost if
I couldn’t do this work. And it’s important to have meaning.”
He said
he is now looking for an outside funding source to help support the service.
Eduardo Zambrano, un gran patólogo amigo quien
ayuda a latinoamérica con su trabajo desde la Universidad de Stanford en EUA.
Publicado en “lapesteloca.blogspot.com”, en Maracaibo el 13 de febrero
de 2016
1 comentario:
Tuve la oportunidad de tratar al Dr. Zambrano y el recuerdo que tengo es el de un médico amable, sencillo, con un gran entusiasmo por ayudar a los demás.
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