Rebecca O’Connor says, “When I first saw the horrific images of the Asian tsunami disaster, I was working the night shift at New York Presbyterian hospital, where I am a pediatric nurse. I felt compelled to do something.”

And O’Connor did do something. She flew to Sri Lanka, along with eight other medical professionals, for a two-week medical-relief trip.

Arriving in Sri Lanka, they traveled through 150 miles of destruction before arriving in a downtown area that had been completely devastated. Setting up their clinic in a downtown Sri Lankan mosque, they saw 40 to 100 patients every shift. Respiratory problems and foot and leg wounds caused by stepping on debris when wading through water were the most common ailments treated.

O’Connor and the others soon discovered they were less than a mile away from a local hospital and another large clinic. She questioned a Sri Lankan friend, “Why are people coming to us?”

The friend said, “Because at the hospital someone asks, ‘Name? Age? Complaint?’ and then gives them a sheet of paper and tells them to go wait somewhere. You sit them down, ask them what’s wrong and treat them. You listen to them.”

Rebecca O’Connor summed it up: “It seemed that the most valuable therapy we were providing had nothing to do with antibiotics or wound care. By listening to story after heartbreaking story, admiring pictures of families once happy and healthy, and playing soccer with children who lost everything, we were able to say, ‘We care about you, and we share in your grief,’ without speaking a word.”