AROUND THE STATE
CENTRAL OHIO
Personalities
Heeding the Call
Doctors Mary and Bryan Cairns practice in both Columbus and Cameroon By Amanda DePerro
For Mary and Bryan Cairns, being a doctor means more than just clocking in, doing a job and clocking out.
disease who lived in areas with limited access to high-quality care. Her dedication only strengthened in medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin when she learned that, gone untreated, many physical ailments lead to psychiatric problems. Pairing the two subjects, Mary pursued a residency in psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where she and Bryan met. After Bryan completed his residency, Mary still needed some clinical rotations. Cincinnati’s family medicine program allows global rotations, and the pair decided to mix work and family – rotations for Mary, work for Bryan and a honeymoon for both. “We thought that we should go (abroad) together, I could get a rotation 30
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for a month, and then we could do a two-week layover in Paris,” says Mary. “I always encourage people – you don’t have to be super altruistic.” In 2011, though, she admits, they did something super altruistic. With the help of Samaritan’s Purse, an organization that sends hundreds of doctors to 45 hospitals and clinics around the world each year, the Cairnses spent a month working at Mbingo Baptist Hospital in Cameroon. “Things you see commonly are severe malnutrition, more complex infections from HIV, the lack of access to care and also a lack of resources,” says Bryan. “In the U.S., we don’t see (patients) get to the point that we see (in Cameroon). It’s taken a lot of learning on how to help those www.healthsceneohio.com
Photos courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse
For the couple, both of whom work for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, being a doctor means dedicating their lives to helping others and, hopefully, learning a few things along the way. Since she was in fifth grade, Mary dreamed of working in Africa. She wanted to help patients with life-threatening