'Mr. Otolaryngology'

Dr. Byron Bailey's humanitarian efforts keep him globetrotting, even after retirement

By Jennifer Reynolds-Sanchez

In 1994, the Ukraine had been independent for only two years. Ukrainians had elected their second president that year. The developing country was still reeling from the effects of the Chernobyl disaster less than a decade before. Despite all that—and tense relations with Russia, skyrocketing inflation, and fuel shortages—Ukrainians were beginning to reach out to the rest of the world. A group of American doctors reached back, visiting the main medical training center in Kiev. Dr. Byron (Ron) Bailey—an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist with more than forty years experience—was prominent in that group. When Bailey arrived he immediately did what he does best: teaching and treating.

“The doctors in Kiev had sort of been isolated for thirty or forty years,” Bailey recalled. “They were aware of a lot of things, but they had a lot of questions.”

The first step for Bailey and his colleagues was to identify the greatest needs, which, he said, included everything from teaching the doctors to diagnose and treat sinus and ear infections to demonstrating how to do reconstructive procedures after cancer surgery.

“We focused more on new medical and surgical treatments for very common things rather than high-tech, very expensive tools we knew they couldn’t afford at the time,” he said. “It was wonderful. Very stimulating.”

Bailey left feeling he had helped make a difference and returned to Galveston to continue to teach, treat patients, and serve as chair of UTMB’s Department of Otolaryngology—a position he had held since 1968. He didn’t know it at the time, but that international trip was to be the first of many.

The next year, a delegation of otolaryngologists from Vietnam attended the annual American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery meeting. They met with Dr. Jack Hough, a pioneer in microscopic ear surgery and founder of the Hough Ear Institute in Oklahoma City, who was known for his commitment to foreign medical missions. The Vietnamese physicians asked him to organize a group of American physicians to visit Vietnam and share their knowledge.

“The country was just beginning to open up—it was really complicated to get into Vietnam at the time,” Bailey said. “But they said they would make the arrangements for a group of ten to twelve doctors from the United States in our specialty to come and spend a week lecturing in Hanoi and a week in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.”

The American physicians shared their expertise through lectures with about 150 Vietnamese physicians in each city, about half of all the ENT specialists in the country. Bailey described the Vietnamese as very formal at first. “We finally got a sense of social warmth and friendship on the last night we were there,” Bailey said. “We had a party at a large hotel and a big dinner. We did a lot of singing and people really warmed up.”

Bailey was hooked. He began making yearly trips to Vietnam through Resource Exchange International (REI), a secular organization based in Colorado Springs that for about ten years has been involved in humanitarian efforts to rebuild and improve developing countries. In 2000, Bailey extended his relationship with REI to include annual medical missions to Cuba.

Dr. Ronald Deskin, UTMB professor of otolaryngology, has been involved with REI since 1998. He said the need for supplies in the two Communist countries can be desperate at times.

“REI’s goal has been to build relationships to build countries,” Deskin explained.

“We have taken a great deal of supplies and helped set up a modern residency training model for Vietnam. The patients, physicians, and governmental officials have been very appreciative of our efforts, and deep, caring relationships have developed on both sides.“

Bailey described Cuba as, like Vietnam, very poor. But Cuban physicians have had more opportunities to travel and learn outside of their country.

“Dr. Bailey is known as ‘Mr. Otolaryngology’ in Vietnam,” Deskin said. “He has been involved with Cuba for about three years. People in both countries truly love him.”

“They have maintained a lot of contact with specialists from South America and Central America,” he said. Cuban residency programs included people from South America and Central America, “so there was a little more of an exchange,” he added. The Cuban physicians “had a pretty good idea of what was going on” in modern medicine, Bailey continued, “but they just couldn’t afford any of it.”

Vietnamese physicians have had less opportunity to travel outside their country for training, so Bailey invited Vietnamese physicians to come to UTMB. So far, seven Vietnamese faculty members have each spent three months in Galveston learning some of the most modern techniques in their field.

“They live in our home, and they work here in the hospital,” Bailey said. “Since they’re not licensed, all they can do is observe, but they get a lot out of that. One of them, while he was here, learned [a procedure] to reconstruct after surgery. He’s very much a young leader over there now.”

It has been less than a decade since Bailey began his trips to Vietnam, but his work through REI has made a lasting impression in that country.

“Dr. Bailey is known as ‘Mr. Otolaryngology’ in Vietnam,” Deskin said. “He has been involved with Cuba for about three years. People in both countries truly love him.”

Last September, Bailey was awarded the 2003 Distinguished Award for Humanitarian Efforts by the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery for epitomizing “the very best as an ambassador for medicine and for the U.S.A. in many countries around the world, most especially Vietnam and Cuba.”

Shortly before receiving the award, Bailey retired as Wiess Professor and chair of otolaryngology. He said he was looking forward to just teaching and seeing patients and was ready for a slower pace. It didn’t last long.

Last October, Bailey made another “very successful” trip to Cuba with eight specialists and two nurses. They worked at the children’s hospital there, gave a few lectures, and learned about the Cuban health system.

In early 2004, Bailey spent four months as a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore. There he taught young physicians modern ENT procedures used in the United States. He is planning to assist in launching an ENT medical journal there if he can find the funding.

At UTMB and in the United States generally, Bailey said, “It’s easy to sit around and feel bad about the fact that we don’t have the money to do this project, or money to buy that piece of equipment, or have negative feelings about what we don’t have here.” But he said the experience of helping those with so little “makes you so happy that you have the freedom to teach and do what we want here.”

“We see health care at a very high level here,” Bailey noted. “The system isn’t perfect here, and we ought to keep trying to fix it.” But when “little warts start to look like cancer to us,” Bailey prescribes a visit to a hospital in the developing world to put matters in proper perspective. After that experience, he thinks everyone would agree that “they’re just warts” after all.