In 2007 Dr. Mateja de Leonni Stanonik, MD, PhD, and Dr. Rifat Latifi, MD, FACS, the Directors of the Amazon Virtual Medical Team, accompanied the marathon swimmer Martin Strel with telemedicine during the 66- day humanitarian expedition in which Mr. Strel swam 3,274 miles of the Amazon from Atalaya, Peru, to the Atlantic Ocean at Belem, Brazil. Not only did Strel accomplish this seemingly impossible task, but a number of medical achievements were made during the medical humanitarian expedition in the course of this journey.

The most important humanitarian initiative was the introduction of telemedicine into the regions that are so remote, not just physically but also developmentally. The Amazon Virtual Medical Team created contacts, a “human bridge” with the villages and its leaders.

They met with the directors of all of the clinics and hospitals along the rivers as well as the mayors of towns. The handshakes that they had with people and leaders are one of the most important developments of this project.

“I’ve always been driven by some mad hope that nothing is impossible. The expected is what keeps us standing, what keeps us steady; the expected is just the beginning, but the unexpected is what changes our lives!” says dr. de Leonni Stanonik, “this belief helped me survive the expedition in general.”

It's 4 a.m. deep within the Amazon jungle when Dr. Mateja de Leonni Stanonik emerges from a makeshift clinic surrounded by a dozen children. They came to her on kayaks and on foot with infections and diseases long eradicated in America. For many, it's the first time they've ever seen a doctor. As she boards a boat that will carry her to another remote village further down the Amazon River, dr. de Leonni Stanonik promises to return.

Dr. de Leonni Stanonik's together with Prof. dr. Rifat Latifi, leads the International Virtual e-Hospital (IVeH, www.iveh.org) Foundation to ensure children like these will have quick access to someone like her in the future. What makes the story inspiring is that a little over two years ago, she had never heard of the organization which promotes telemedicine as a way to bring specialized health care to medically underserved or remote areas of the world. She was preparing for her career as clinician and neuroscientist, where she planned to further her research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Then she received a phone call from a family friend, the swimmer Martin Strel, that, to many, would sound absurd: he was going to swim the Amazon River and wanted her to be his physician. Soon, dr. de Leonni Stanonik found her way to IVeH and began assembling an international medical team of specialists who would assist her virtually, through medical equipment and internet connections, during the expedition. By the time the 66-day journey ended, dr. de Leonni Stanonik had demonstrated the telemedicine concept to hospital administrators and government leaders in 17 communities from Atalaya, Peru, to Belém, Brazil.

Today, this Slovenian native takes time out of her busy clinical and research schedule to continue the work of IVeH, where she serves as vice president of the organization's virtual team in Slovenia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Peru, Brazil, and Yemen. With a grant from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, IVeH has opened a dozen regional telemedicine centers in the Balkans and trained 49 doctors and nurses from Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro at its facilities in Alaska and Arizona. Now, dr. de Leonni Stanonik’s team is initiating a similar project for the remote areas of the Amazon jungle they visited during the Amazon Expedition accompanying Martin Strel when he swam the entire length of the Amazon.

"To be able to give people hope and a chance to have good health is a primary motivating factor for all of us, whether we come from Slovenia, Peru, or the United States," she said. "We can prove to the world that we can be human and humane as we are fostering international collaboration, as well as sustaining cutting-edge advancements in medicine and technology - all in efforts to make this a better, safer and more humane world."

State Department International Religious Freedom Report 2009 - Slovenia

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and other laws and policies contributed to the generally free practice of religion. The Government generally respected religious freedom in practice. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period.

Medical Humanitarian Expedition into the Amazon Jungle

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