NMCSD Pediatric Director Conducts Humanitarian Aid in Brazil

by Brazilian Riverine Mission Public Affairs

AMAZON RIVER, Brazil – U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ed Milder is a pediatric infectious disease specialist and the Program Director of the Department of Pediatrics at Naval Medical Center San Diego. He is currently deployed on NAsH Carlos Chagas, a Brazilian Naval Hospital ship, to provide care to the riverine community in the Amazon.

“Tropical jungle environments like the Amazon suffer from a tremendous variety of potentially lethal infections,” said Milder. “Working with the Brazilian Navy to help build their capacity to provide pediatric care is a great experience. The lessons we learn from missions like these are an invaluable part of military medical training, and one of the things that make military graduate medical education unique.”

The Brazilian Riverine Mission is a joint effort between Commander, U.S. Fourth Fleet and the Brazilian Navy’s Ninth Naval District, whose mission is to provide care to local populations, build medical interoperability in support of joint humanitarian and disaster relief missions, and exchange medical knowledge. This is the third mission of its type and is serving as a platform to expand the U.S. Navy’s tropical medicine training opportunities, which will ultimately combine training at the Tropical Medicine Institute in Manaus followed by a joint medical mission within the Amazon River basin.