Newport Physician’s Practice Is in the Third World

Dr. Robert S. Greenburg had traveled the world, but what he found in Africa changed his life.

In September, the obstetrician and gynecologist left behind a thriving 17-year practice, determined to attack the plague of cervical cancer in Africa. Greenburg, 51, co-founded the Southern California-based Medicine for Humanity, which seeks to send volunteer American doctors and technology to fight the problem.

In the Third World, 475,000 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year, Greenburg said. It is the second most common cancer worldwide and by far one of the most fatal.

In South Africa, 33% of black women with cancer have cervical cancer. Those who die of it usually are in their mid-30s to early 40s.

“The family unit is destroyed due to the premature death of the mother,” he said. “Since women are the nurturers, the children are basically without a mother. This weakens the society.”

Greenburg, 51, and his partner, Dr. Leo Lagasse, a gynecologist at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who co-founded Medicine for Humanity, have gone on two missions to the Philippines and one to South Africa. A fourth is planned for September.

In the Philippines, they trained 20 physicians to care for patients with pelvic cancer. They introduced advanced surgical techniques that reduce surgery time from seven hours to 2 1/2 hours, with fewer complications. They did similar work in Africa, accompanied by five other doctors, nurses and specialists who donated their own funds and vacation time to volunteer.

“It’s amazing the sense of accomplishment that I get,” Greenburg said. “The wonderful warm feeling of being of assistance reinforces the original reason why I went into medicine.”

Medicine for Humanity targets women who are excluded from health care, either through poverty or lack of women’s rights, Greenburg said.

The vast majority of cervical cancers are caused by the human papilloma viruses, which are sexually transmitted. A study by Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health published last year found that 93% of the cervical tumors examined from 22 countries were caused by the virus.

If the virus is treated, cancer can be avoided.

“The tragedy is that these deaths are all preventable,” Greenburg said. “We can save these women from a very agonizing death.”

He recalled seeing 40 women in a clinic at the University of Natal in South Africa with advanced cancer of the cervix.

“These women were literally sitting on death row,” he said. “They were all poor black patients who had been excluded from care due to social inequities. There was no cure available, only reduction in the symptoms. All of these women could have been cured if they had come to proper medical attention when their disease was in a pre-invasive stage.”

Greenburg and Lagasse someday hope to establish women’s care centers in Durban, Johannesburg and Soweto, South Africa, to provide exams and treatment. Some equipment already has been donated by Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. The money, they say, would come from hoped-for donations.

“It is our hope that through public awareness for the need to care for women, we can reduce suffering and unnecessary death,” Greenburg said. “It is our goal to bring about eradication of a malignancy just as smallpox and polio have been eradicated.”