Denise Cucurny, President and Co-Founder, is the trip coordinator and international liaison for Women for World Health.  She is an anthropologist whose background includes biological, cultural and medical anthropology.  Denise has worked with numerous volunteer medical organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.  From 1999- 2006 she was Director of Operations for Plasticos Foundation, a volunteer group of plastic/reconstructive surgeons who travel to developing nations performing free surgeries on children with birth defects or other traumatic injuries.  She currently serves as Director of Trip Development for Plasticos Foundation and has made invaluable international contacts through her tenure with them.   Denise is also working with the Himalayan Health Exchange in an effort to improve the health options to remote peoples in the Himalayan region of India.  Denise's research focus is on merging traditional and occidental medicine to improve patient care in developing nations.  Toward this goal, she has been working with Edgar Rodas, former Minister of Health for Ecuador.  She has been on multiple missions with Dr. Rodas' foundation, Cinterandes in their mobile O.R. traveling to remote areas of Ecuador performing free surgeries on people in need and interviewing traditional healers in these regions.

As a Professor of Anthropology Denise has lived and taught all over the world. She has been coordinating medical missions and anthropological field schools since 1994.  She has a special talent for seeking out and developing strong relationships with those we work with around the world, regardless of their cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds.  She is the liaison between the host country, Women for World Health, medical teams, patients, family members and local community leaders. Denise continues her work with Tibetan refugees in northern India, shamans in the Amazon, traditional healers in the Andes and occidental medical practitioners in the third world as well as the U.S. and Europe.  "The medical needs in the third world are critical and diverse.  I want to offer a variety of medical options to improve the lives of individuals in poor nations. To give someone hope is the best gift I can offer."

www.plasticosfoundation.org
www.himalayanhealth.com
www.cinterandes.org

Vice-President and Co-Founder of Women for World Health, Dr. Amy G. Wandel became involved with medical missions in 1989.  Dr. Wandel spent two years in the Philippines after completing her general surgery residency at U.C. Davis East Bay. As a Navy general surgeon, Dr. Wandel volunteered on multiple medical missions that went into the jungles surrounding the military base. These medical teams were made up of military and civilian personnel whose purpose was to seek out small villages of native people in the jungle and provide basic medical care, immunizations and antibiotics to them. These trips often saved lives through immunizations, wound care, antibiotics and nutritional supplements.
In 1990, Dr. Wandel returned to the United States and entered a plastic surgery residency at Brown University. After completing of her residency, Dr. Wandel traveled back to California to work as a plastic surgeon at the Naval Medical Center Oakland. It was during her tenure here that Dr. Wandel went on her first medical mission as a plastic surgeon. She went to Nicaragua to perform reconstructive surgery on children with facial and hand deformities..

“This was the most amazing experience for me. I would take these little children from their parents and repair their cleft lip and bring them back to their parents who were overjoyed. But was even more moving for me was that I was making it possible for them to rejoin their world. Most of these children were looked upon as a curse laid upon their family for past sins. Their families were cut off from their community and the children were hidden away. But when
the lip had been fixed, they too were ‘fixed’. When I got back, I could not wait to go on another trip.”

Dr. Wandel has since been on more than 25 medical missions with multiple organizations and has not only performed the surgeries on these children but taught local surgeons how to do these complex repairs. Now Dr. Wandel is looking towards meeting more of the medical and educational needs of these people in underdeveloped countries. She has joined two other women who share the same vision: that little by little each of us can make the world better and safer by sharing our skills and knowledge with those in need.

Amanda Quintanilla, RN is the Nursing Coordinator for Women for World Health.  Since 1982 she has worked as a nurse in a variety of capacities including operative, preoperative, postoperative, oncology, home care, hospice and pediatrics.   She brings this extensive knowledge and experience to Women for World Health to ensure excellence in patient care.  Amanda has worked with various volunteer medical organizations providing health care in Asia, Central America, South America and Cuba.

  Amanda and her son Michael have been working within their community to educate teens and parents about the unique risks faced by young drivers, fundraising for the YMCA and helping provide safe after school care for families in need.

Amanda’s inspiration developed early in life.  Following in her mother's footsteps of community service and under the tutelage of Monsignor John Coffield, her family priest who worked alongside Cesar Chavez and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Amanda assisted in her church parish as a teen, helped her mother to sponsor immigrant families from Vietnam in the 1970’s and has sustained her passion for helping other people.

Amanda's years of working in southern California have provided her with a strong network of nursing contacts in all areas of medicine.  She is in a unique position to assist with the nursing needs of Women for World Health. "No medical team can function without nurses.  Coordinating the nursing staff of Women for World Health provides me with the opportunity to help patients in different specialties of medicine over a broad geographical area."