Thoracic Surgeon Harnesses Medical Background for Mission Trips
Jobelle Baldonado, MD
At Moffitt Cancer Center, Jobelle Baldonado, MD, is on the front lines in the fight against lung cancer as a surgeon in the Thoracic Oncology Department. In her native Philippines, she treats almost anything but the disease.
“There’s no lung cancer screening there,” Baldonado said. “When you get presented with a lung cancer patient, it’s usually stage 4 disease. As a surgeon I don’t get to resect early stage disease because it has already spread.”
Baldonado has been working with government officials to try to introduce screening policies, but until that happens she’s finding other ways to put her medical background to use.
“I’m thoracic, cardiac and vascular trained,” she said. “When I go home for mission trips, I usually perform vascular procedures.”
Baldonado most commonly treats patients with chronic kidney disease, performing an arteriovenous fistula creation. It’s a procedure that connects an artery and a vein to create a permanent vascular access point for dialysis.
“These patients require dialysis,” she explained. “They need transplants, but they are not capable of getting them. So unfortunately, it has to be dialysis forever and sadly, even until they die. They usually die of complications from the kidney failure.”
During Baldonado’s most recent visit in 2022, she flew five other doctors from various provinces in the Philippines to her hometown Santiago, Ilocos Sur, 220 miles north of Manila. For Baldonado, the trip involved 24 hours in the air, with layovers in Atlanta and Incheon, South Korea, and finally landing in Manila. The group met there and spent the next seven hours driving to Ilocos Sur.
After a few hours rest, the group performed 36 arteriovenous fistula procedures, working with five doctors across two operating rooms for nearly 12 straight hours.
“It was a jam-packed day,” Baldonado said. “There was no time to recover from the flight.”
Baldonado and her colleagues performed 36 procedures over the course of 12 hours.
She treated her colleagues to a rest day before sending them off back to their home provinces. She stayed behind to spend some time with her family, but her work was hardly done.
“Your neighbors know you’re a doctor, and they’ll come to your house unannounced,” Baldonado said. “No matter what you’re wearing or what you’re doing, you’ll do a consult right then and there. Obviously they need you, so I’m always receptive to it. It’s a privilege to be able to see patients and treat them so I welcome it.”
Her list of walk-in cases include things like asthma, miscellaneous lumps and bumps or even a follow-up consultation on a colorectal cancer surgery. She doesn’t turn away patients no matter how difficult or unrelated to her specialty the case may be.
“I know how difficult it is to live out there,” Baldonado said. “Not everybody has insurance. Not everybody has the money to pay for a doctor’s visit.”
While she doesn’t ask for payment, her patients do find ways to express their gratitude with some unique gifts.
“Sometimes they give me live chicken or fish,” Baldonado said. “It could be a bag of fresh vegetables they’ve picked from their farm. These are very nice gestures. I don’t require anything in return, but I love the appreciation for the care that I can give to them.”
While there’s no set date for her next mission trip, she maintains the importance of working on improving access to lung cancer screening for future visits. She’s in contact with their local subspecialty society in pushing for bills to be filed and passed up through the Congress.
“Right now, it’s a very grassroots effort,” Baldonado said. “We’re still trying to get where we need to be. We’re not anywhere near there yet, but we’re pushing.”
