Meet Nurse Fox
Diana Fox’s birthplace pre-disposed her to travel. Fox, RN, EMTC is a New-Zealander – also known self-referentially as a Kiwi. “We’re on the bottom of the world in our little island and we like to get away so we travel a lot,” she explained.
One significant stop in her travels was Cambodia. Fox described how she went to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, but found herself in a medical role alongside four other nurses, upon learning there were no health workers to care for the community. “I was like ‘oh, I didn’t know I could do this before.” Fox discovered she could pair her love of travel with medicine.
This realization eventually led to Fox joining Operation Smile, one of her greatest passions. Fox described her dedication to the organization in rather unconventional terms, “I’m a bit of a junkie, it’s my high,” she stated.
In the past nine years, Fox has completed nineteen missions where she helped fix cleft lips and palates in places as varied as the Congo, Mongolia, the Central American region, Jordan and Uzbekistan. “When you do a five-minute surgery on a baby, it changes their life.” Fox explained. “They can leave the house, they aren’t ostracized, they can eat.” Despite the short procedure, Fox emphasized that Operation Smile is not just a ‘drop-in, drop-out’ style mission.
Pre-mission, parent-groups with children who previously had cleft palates and lips find community members with the condition and educate them, in the hopes of bringing them in for surgery. Operation Smile holds a 3-week and 2-year post-assessment for each mission site. During the mission itself, student groups provide care for those waiting, translators ease communications, and volunteers supply meals. “It brings everyone together,” Fox concluded.
Besides the collaboration between the community and Operation Smile, the mission itself unites medical professionals. “Every single caregiver is from a different country,” Fox explained. “So, when I go on a mission I might be working with a nurse from Australia, and intern from Italy, a surgeon from China. It doesn’t matter where you’re from – you’re trained for your specific area of the mission, and you land the night before, and you just get to work.”
This philosophy of disregarding background in favor of superordinate goals extends to Fox’s outlook on global health outreach as well. Fox conveyed her thoughts on how global health is “all about breaking down borders and barriers” but that more than anything, “it’s taking care of children.”
Education is also an integral component of Global Health. With Operation Smile, she explained how many of the local students who were part of the mission would continue their studies and eventually join the organization. “They can [now] help others in other countries,” Fox explained. “It’s about their potential to educate.”
Fox herself sees the missions for their potential to teach others. Importantly, the lessons are just as much about the world around her as it is about Operation Smile. “I expand their knowledge that it’s not just about America – which some people seem to think it is,” Fox said of her own role post-mission. Back at Children’s National, Fox is equally excited to learn from fellow medical professionals. She explained how even though she was working with her colleagues in the E.R. daily she had no idea they were helping refugees in D.C. or going to Roatán for their Pediatric Residency. “I love to see what other people are doing, if they need help, and what I can do to help them,” Fox said. Even post-mission Fox is always restless to get involved again.
“Like I said I’m a junky,” she reiterated. “Whenever I get a call, my life stops and I figure out how to pack and how to go because I’m so excited to do it. I’m trying to figure out how quickly I can get there.”
If we ever manage to break the bounds of space-travel, you can be certain Fox would be eager to travel, learn, and provide healthcare out there too.