Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization committed to bringing quality medical care to people in crisis regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. MSF recruits both medical and non-medical aid workers to provide assistance in more than 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.

MSF teams performed more than 73,000 major surgical interventions under general or spinal anesthesia in 2011 - anesthesia delivered by anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists recruited from all over the world - including from the United States. Surgeries commonly performed in the field include obstetrics/C-sections, burns, trauma, and orthopedics.

In New York City on Wednesday evening, February 27, please join us for a presentation on the humanitarian principles and work of MSF as well as employment opportunities in the field for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists.

MSF-USA staff will be joined by two New York based MSF aid workers – nurse anesthetist, Cliff Roberson, and anesthesiologist, Dr. Julia Sobol – who will share stories and photos from recent MSF assignments in Haiti, Nigeria, and South Sudan.

The presentation will last 90 minutes, including Q&A.

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*Read the bios below to learn more about our presenters, and please visit our website to review the requirements for joining our team and to read first-hand field accounts from fellow practitioners.

Cliff Roberson is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) and aid worker with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from New York City. Roberson is a faculty member at the Columbia University School of Nursing Graduate Program in Nurse Anesthesia and practices at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He completed a doctorate in nursing practice at Vanderbilt University in May 2012. Roberson will share his experiences from recent MSF assignments in Aweil, South Sudan and Léogâne, Haiti.

Dr. Julia Sobol is an attending in anesthesia and critical care at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. She completed both her residency and fellowship at Columbia, finishing in July 2010. In 2011, Dr. Sobol completed her first assignment as an anesthesiologist with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – a two month mission in MSF’s maternity and fistula repair program in Jahun, Nigeria.