A Medical Mission Rooted in Service and Faith
For three decades, the Cuban Association of the Order of Malta has supported vulnerable communities in the Dominican Republic through a continuing commitment to medical care, humanitarian service, and spiritual accompaniment. What began as a much smaller effort has grown into a major biannual mission involving doctors, nurses, medical students, aspiring health professionals, and volunteers from South Florida and other parts of the United States.
In September 2025, more than 100 members of a U.S. medical delegation traveled to the rural areas surrounding Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. Over several demanding days, the group expected to provide medical evaluations, treatments, medication reviews, and surgical care to more than 1,000 patients. Every service, including necessary medication and surgery, was offered without charge to the patients.
The mission is coordinated by the Miami-based Cuban Association of the Order of Malta, an organization whose work is deeply connected to the Christian responsibility to care for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and those living at society’s edges.
For the health professionals who participate, the trip is not simply an opportunity to practice medicine in a different setting. It is a chance to place professional knowledge at the service of people who might otherwise have little or no access to specialized care. It is also an experience that changes the volunteers themselves, reminding them why medicine, nursing, and service remain closely connected to compassion.
Taking Medical Skills Beyond Familiar Boundaries
Dr. Jorge Echenique, a Miami urologist and member of the Cuban Association of the Order of Malta, described the mission as an expression of a calling that goes beyond ordinary professional success.
A person can work hard, build a career, care for family members, and contribute positively to a local community. Those are all meaningful achievements. Yet Dr. Echenique believes that faith invites people to take another step: to extend their abilities and concern beyond their immediate surroundings.
For him, that means bringing medical knowledge to communities that are geographically distant and economically underserved. It means recognizing that expertise carries responsibility. A surgeon, physician, nurse, or other health care worker has skills that can relieve pain, preserve health, restore mobility, or even save a life. Using those abilities in places where care is difficult to obtain becomes a powerful act of service.
Dr. Echenique, who has belonged to the Order of Malta since 2002 and is a parishioner at Epiphany Parish in Miami, sees this work as a practical expression of Christian love.
The goal is not only to provide a procedure, distribute medications, or complete a diagnosis. The mission also seeks to affirm the dignity of each patient. In communities affected by poverty, displacement, limited transportation, and shortages of medical specialists, the simple experience of being listened to by a compassionate health professional can carry immense importance.
The medical team’s work reflects the belief that care should not be determined solely by a patient’s income, location, or social status. Those who arrive at the clinics may have delayed treatment for months or years. Some may travel from remote villages, while others come from communities near Santiago de los Caballeros. Each patient brings a unique set of needs, concerns, and hopes.
A Four-Day Effort With a Year-Round Foundation
Although the visiting mission takes place over only a few days, the effort depends on careful preparation long before the U.S. team arrives in the Dominican Republic.
A permanent team in Santiago plays a crucial role in identifying people with serious medical needs. The local network connects patients from remote villages and nearby communities with the visiting professionals. This work includes assisting residents of communities where displaced Haitians live within the Dominican Republic, as well as other populations facing barriers to medical services.
By identifying patients in advance, the mission can make the best possible use of its limited time. Cases requiring specialized attention can be reviewed and scheduled. Patients in need of surgery can be assessed. Local organizers can help families understand where to go and when to arrive. This preparation makes it possible for the visiting team to care for a large number of people in a compressed period.
The scale of the mission has increased substantially over the years. Dr. José J. Centurion, a Coral Gables cardiologist and the outgoing president of the Cuban Association of the Order of Malta in Miami, recalled that the effort was once far smaller. Earlier missions could consist of about 10 people going into rural areas to serve communities in need.
Today, the medical delegation can approach 120 physicians, nurses, students, and volunteers. In a typical four-day mission, the team may complete nearly 60 surgeries and see approximately 1,300 individual patients. That growth reflects not only the dedication of the association’s members, but also the willingness of medical professionals and volunteers to devote time, energy, and resources to a demanding undertaking.
The numbers tell part of the story, but they cannot fully capture what happens in clinic rooms, waiting areas, surgical spaces, pharmacies, and conversations between patients and caregivers. Behind every statistic is a person seeking relief, reassurance, diagnosis, treatment, or a path toward better health.
Care Across Many Medical Specialties
The Dominican Republic mission brings together professionals from a broad range of specialties. Over the course of the association’s three decades of work, participating physicians have included experts in urology, cardiology, internal medicine, pediatrics, dentistry, plastic surgery, gynecology, and other areas of care.
This multidisciplinary approach is essential because the needs of patients are diverse. A child may require a pediatric evaluation, while an older adult may need assistance with chronic cardiovascular issues. A patient experiencing pain or complications may need to see a urologist or gynecologist. Dental professionals may address oral health concerns that affect nutrition, comfort, and confidence. Surgical teams may treat conditions that have gone unresolved due to a lack of local resources.
Many patients who come to the clinics have not had consistent access to preventive care. This can mean that manageable health concerns have developed into more serious problems over time. The mission attempts to meet patients where they are, offering examinations, medical guidance, medication assessments, treatment plans, and interventions appropriate to the available time and resources.
Providing surgery is particularly significant. Surgical procedures can be expensive and difficult to access even in well-resourced health systems. For individuals living in poor or rural communities, the obstacles may be even greater. Travel costs, loss of income, lack of insurance, limited specialist availability, and distance from hospitals can all keep patients from obtaining needed operations.
By providing surgeries without charge, the mission removes some of those barriers. For patients and their families, this can mean relief from pain, improved quality of life, and a renewed ability to work, care for loved ones, or participate more fully in daily life.
The medical services are provided at no cost, but their value extends far beyond financial assistance. The mission offers time, skill, attention, and solidarity. It communicates that patients who may feel overlooked by larger systems are not forgotten.
The Role of Young Medical Students and Future Professionals
One of the most meaningful elements of the mission is the participation of young people preparing for careers in health care. Medical students and aspiring medical school applicants travel from around the United States to work alongside experienced physicians, nurses, and volunteers.
For many of these young participants, the trip provides an early and formative view of medicine as a vocation of service. They see veteran professionals working long hours in difficult conditions while remaining focused on the needs of patients. They observe the importance of teamwork, humility, careful listening, cultural sensitivity, and adaptability.
Classroom learning and clinical rotations can teach future health professionals the scientific foundations of medicine. A mission experience adds another dimension. It reveals the human realities behind illness and health disparities. It asks young people to consider how poverty, geography, migration, displacement, and limited infrastructure can shape a person’s ability to obtain care.
Dr. Echenique emphasized that it is especially moving to watch younger volunteers deepen their connection to faith and discover a more compassionate understanding of medicine. In this environment, medicine is not primarily about prestige, personal advancement, or technical achievement. It is about caring for people because their lives have inherent worth.
The experience can also influence how students approach their future careers. They may return to their studies with a stronger sense of responsibility toward underserved populations. They may become more attentive to the social factors that affect health. They may carry with them a lasting awareness that patients are more than diagnoses or cases; they are individuals with families, histories, fears, and hopes.
Participation in the mission may also help aspiring medical students demonstrate their commitment to service. Dr. Centurion noted that young people who join the delegation can receive letters of recommendation for medical school applications. Admissions committees often place considerable value on applicants who have shown a sustained willingness to serve communities with limited resources.
Still, the central importance of the experience is not its value on an application. Its deeper value lies in the formation of character. It calls future physicians and health professionals to consider what kind of caregivers they want to become.
A Spiritual Rhythm Within the Work
The mission is explicitly shaped by the Catholic identity and traditions of the Order of Malta. Participants have opportunities to gather for prayer, including morning Mass during the weeklong clinic effort. Prayer at the beginning and end of the day helps volunteers place their work within a wider spiritual perspective.
The work is intense. Medical teams face crowded schedules, complex cases, long days, and the emotional weight of encountering profound need. In that setting, shared prayer can provide a moment of reflection, gratitude, and renewed purpose.
It also creates a sense of unity among participants who come from different professional backgrounds and stages of life. Surgeons, physicians, nurses, students, translators, organizers, and other volunteers each contribute in distinct ways. Prayer reminds the team that their shared work is rooted in service rather than individual accomplishment.
For many volunteers, the spiritual dimension is inseparable from the medical mission. Faith provides the motivation to serve people at the margins, while medical care becomes a concrete way to live that faith. The mission does not separate compassion from competence. Rather, it brings them together.
This approach reflects a longstanding Catholic tradition of caring for the sick. Throughout history, religious communities and lay organizations have established hospitals, clinics, shelters, schools, and charitable services. The Order of Malta continues in that tradition through humanitarian and health-related work around the world.
The Cuban Association of the Order of Malta
The Cuban Association of the Order of Malta has a history that spans several countries and generations. It was founded in Havana in 1952. During the 1960s, its base was transferred to Spain. By the 1990s, it had become headquartered in Miami.
At one point in the 1990s, the association had about 25 members living in different parts of the world. Today, most of its approximately 70 knights, dames, donates, and chaplains live in South Florida. From Miami, the association coordinates a range of charitable and humanitarian efforts connected to the Caribbean.
Its medical missions to the Dominican Republic and Haiti are among its most visible works. The organization also collaborates with the Church in Cuba to operate dining facilities for elderly people. These projects demonstrate a consistent focus on people who are poor, ill, isolated, or otherwise vulnerable.
Dr. Centurion has been a member of the Order of Malta since the 1990s. His own connection to the Dominican Republic goes back even further, to his medical school years in Santiago during the mid-1970s. That personal history gives added meaning to his involvement in the mission today.
For Dr. Centurion, the enduring purpose of the Order is straightforward: care for those who are poor and sick. This mission is not built around a single annual event or a temporary response to hardship. It is part of a long-term commitment to serving people whose needs often receive too little attention.
Serving Displaced and Marginalized Communities
The mission’s concern for marginalized people includes communities of displaced Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. These populations can face complicated social and economic challenges, including limited access to stable employment, housing, transportation, documentation, and health services.
Displacement often creates health risks that extend beyond immediate medical conditions. Families may struggle to obtain regular medications, prenatal care, vaccinations, dental services, or treatment for chronic illnesses. Language barriers and uncertainty about where to seek assistance can further complicate access to care.
By working through local contacts and a permanent team in Santiago, the medical mission can reach people who might otherwise remain outside the health system. This requires more than simply opening a clinic for a few days. It involves building trust, identifying needs, organizing referrals, and ensuring that patients can reach the services being offered.
The work also recognizes that illness and poverty are often interconnected. A person who is unable to afford transportation may postpone a doctor’s visit. Someone with an untreated condition may be unable to work. A family managing chronic illness may face greater economic strain. Medical care alone cannot solve every aspect of poverty, but it can ease suffering and help people regain stability.
The mission’s emphasis on the marginalized is therefore central rather than incidental. It is directed toward those who have fewer options and face the greatest obstacles to receiving care.
What Volunteers Receive From the People They Serve
The volunteers come to the Dominican Republic prepared to give their time and professional abilities. Yet Dr. Echenique believes they often receive something equally important in return.
He has observed that serving patients in need brings a profound sense of gratitude and interior fulfillment. The people receiving care offer volunteers a reminder of resilience, dignity, and the importance of human connection. Even in situations marked by hardship, patients and families may express generosity, trust, patience, and appreciation.
This exchange challenges the assumption that humanitarian work flows in only one direction. The medical team provides tangible services, but the community offers lessons that cannot be measured in a surgical count or patient total. Volunteers return home with a renewed awareness of what matters in their professions and in their lives.
For established doctors and nurses, the mission can restore a sense of purpose amid the pressures of modern health care. Administrative demands, rushed schedules, financial concerns, and institutional constraints can sometimes obscure the personal reasons people entered medicine in the first place. Working directly with patients who have few resources can bring those reasons into clearer focus.
For students, the mission can become a defining experience. It may shape their understanding of service before they have fully entered their careers. It may help them see that medical knowledge is not only a path to professional achievement, but also a means of responding to human suffering.
A Continuing Commitment to Human Dignity
The 2025 medical mission near Santiago de los Caballeros represents another chapter in a 30-year effort, but it also reflects a larger vision of service. The Cuban Association of the Order of Malta has built an enduring network of health professionals, local partners, volunteers, students, and faith communities committed to meeting urgent needs.
The delegation’s work is demanding, concentrated, and often emotionally intense. In only a few days, the team seeks to deliver care to more than a thousand patients and perform dozens of surgeries. Behind that effort are months of planning, coordination, fundraising, logistical preparation, medical review, and local outreach.
Yet the mission’s significance cannot be measured only by its size. It is found in the individual encounters between caregivers and patients. It is present in a successful procedure, a diagnosis that finally explains a persistent problem, medication provided to someone unable to purchase it, or reassurance offered to a worried family.
It is also present in the commitment to return. The biannual nature of the mission signals that this is not a one-time act of generosity. It is a sustained relationship with communities in need.
For Dr. Echenique, Dr. Centurion, and the many professionals who join the mission, the work is a reminder that service requires stepping beyond familiar boundaries. It calls people to use their gifts not only for personal success or local benefit, but for the good of people who may be distant, poor, sick, displaced, or forgotten.
In doing so, the mission brings medical care to those who need it most while offering volunteers a powerful lesson: compassion is not separate from professional excellence. At its best, it is one of the reasons that excellence matters.
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