David Mohler has a thriving practice treating orthopedic cancer patients and a comfortable Silicon Valley life. He also has had a $10,000 price on his head, done surgery in primitive jungle huts, and bounced in a jeep along rutted roads headed to patients with no other medical care options.
His dual life—Stanford-affliated surgeon and war-zone doctor—began more than 20 years ago when Mohler, then a recent graduate of Cornell’s medical school, volunteered with a civilian group treating Afghan victims of the Soviet army. Inspired by the work of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Mohler signed up as a battalion surgeon in the Reserve.
While in the Special Forces, Mohler heard about and joined Refugee Relief International. The tiny nonprofit (about 40 volunteers and an annual budget around $25,000) is filled with former soldiers who can sneak uninvited across borders, handle a gun and carry all of their medical supplies in a 60-pound backpack. “Our niche in the charity world is we are a group who goes to where the refugees are being created and tries to bring them help as soon as possible,” says physician’s assistant John Padgett, PhD.
Their medical work sometimes has political consequences. In 1996, while still active in the Reserve (he resigned his commission as a major in 1999), Mohler was in Cambodia as part of an Army mission to get the last of the Khmer Rouge to surrender. He was working out of a converted barn when he saw a family with a boy with a cleft lip walk by. “Grab those people,” he told a colleague. After getting permission to switch to his Refugee Relief hat (“The dividing line is strong—you can’t mix the two,” he says), Mohler operated. The surgery went well—“the mom was beside herself that her disfigured son, whom no one would talk to, looked beautiful,” Mohler remembers—and word spread about the event. Within days approximately 3,000 of the enemy had switched sides. Mohler believes his surgery contributed. “That was one of those huge impact ones,” he says. “It’s not just, ‘surrender,’ but ‘surrender and we will take care of you and change your lives for the better.’”
Not everyone is so positive. The medical team has been a target. In April 2000, the Burmese military shot up a hut that Mohler and his team had left 20 minutes before. “We were giving aid and comfort to the people they want to cleanse,” he says.
Mohler, now president of Refugee Relief International, is working hard to raise money for more missions. He continues to go on about two trips a year. One key mission: making it home each time to his wife, venture capitalist Heidi Roizen, ’80, MBA ’83, and their two daughters, 11 and 13. Mohler says he plans to continue his work “until they pry the scalpel from my cold dead fingers.”
