A commitment to help others

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>sun-sentinel.com By Erwin M. Vasquez Posted May 11 2003

On my way back to Venezuela in 1979 from a cold and snowy Washington, D.C., I drove for hours and decided to rest in Fort Lauderdale before reaching Miami International Airport.

At a restaurant, I was conversing with some people who told me a hospital on the beach was seeking physicians. I drove over to what then was North Beach Medical Center on State Road A1A in Fort Lauderdale and spoke with the staff there.

As destiny would have it, I decided to stay in Fort Lauderdale and open my cardiology practice. That was the beginning of my journey, and the horizon was infinite.

I used to vacation in the United States as a child with my family, but in 1971 I came to Miami to take a foreign medical graduate test. After passing that exam, I started an intensive English course at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Then I did an internship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, completed my residency in Detroit, and finished a cardiology specialty at the University of Pittsburgh. I was quickly learning the American culture.

Medicine was my dream, and to be a good physician was my goal. My father was a fisherman and my mother was a pious woman who concentrated on my values and education. My parents instilled a foundation for me and the courage needed to later endure the difficult medical internship with my language limitations.

Medicine gave me the financial independence to practice the values given to me. I have always been interested in every aspect of social justice. When I was a child, I remember my mother placing food out by the kitchen door every night for the poor and forgotten. My religious upbringing was strong, and our belief to help those who are suffering was part of my formation.

I wanted to expand my profession toward that aim. In 1989, after treating so many poor immigrants through my practice, I founded the Light of the World Clinic (Clinica Luz del Mundo), along with a priest and a number of volunteer Hispanic physicians. It was meant to serve as a primary medical clinic for the needy and underserved families who fall between the cracks of an already burdened public health system -- understanding the limitations that these families face with language barriers and no jobs or money.

Today, the clinic remains a free volunteer-run facility, totally supported through small grants and private donations. Without any state or county funds, the clinic provides services to more than 12,000 people a year with general medicine, cardiology, dermatology, gynecology, pediatric, psychology and nutrition programs. With a cadre of volunteers, medical professionals and students who give of their time from the heart, this is truly a community project of love.

Around the time I opened the clinic, I sought to expand my volunteer efforts and my path crossed with my future wife, Elaine Micelli, who had had a different experience in her life. As a then-single mother of three daughters from Brooklyn, N.Y., she dedicated her time to them and worked two to three jobs to make ends meet.

Her career spanned the gamut from the cable television industry to the Hispanic market. She has helped organize fund-raising and educational events with the aim of adding a Hispanic flavor to the mainstream, and runs El Heraldo, which went from a monthly to a weekly publication.

She brought the American way into my life and made me believe we could achieve the dream together. We have been combining our volunteerism for many years. It keeps us centered and aware of the numerous people who touch us and whom we touch, producing a communion of souls.

We believe we should "give until it hurts," in the words of Mother Teresa. Our faith helps us endure the pain of seeing people suffer, and to be able to accomplish a number of tasks all at once.

Although our worlds were different, our principles and values were essentially what brought us together. Our parents gave us a similar foundation: to love thy neighbor and do no harm unto anyone.

As an immigrant in this land of the free and brave, I have been fortunate to have good mentors who have shown me the way with so much love.

Still, the work is not complete.

There is poverty, homelessness, discrimination and racism. Our work will be complete when these fade from society. The occasional "My Story, A New Life" features people from outside the United States who have established themselves successfully in South Florida.