Despite enormous health care challenges in Bangladesh, alumna Heather Fowler is in it for the long haul.

Before Heather Fowler, D.O.’94, ever met Viggo Olsen, M.D., he shaped her career and led her to the most densely populated country in the world.

As a teenager, Fowler read Olsen’s book Daktar: Diplomat in Bangladesh, which chronicled his medical missionary work and efforts to establish the country’s first modern medical facility.

“The book influenced me,” she says. “During my interview at DMU, I told the staff I planned to do medical mission work.”

During her year in private practice, Fowler obtained charitable contributions and joined the Association of Baptists, a nongovernmental organization that helped her locate in Bangladesh in 1999. She now is director of the reproductive and child health care program at Malumghat Hospital, the center she read about in Olsen’s book.

Heather Fowler cares for patients in all stages of life with a wide variety of health needs.

“That’s just how God directed,” she says.

It’s no work for wimps. More than 156 million people live in the South Asian country, which is slightly smaller than the state of Iowa. Nearly half live below the poverty line. Malnutrition is rampant; diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and rabies are common.

“The people don’t have a lot of exposure to basic health care such as immunizations and clean water,” Fowler notes. “They’re so poor, they can’t afford to even boil their water, so trying to stay healthy is nearly impossible.”

Fowler and her colleagues, who include four American physicians and eight American nurses, also often deal with leaky catheters and IV bottles. They resterilize their gloves and frequently can’t get the inhalers and rabies vaccinations their patients need.

“We have a fairly good lab and X-ray department, but with the humid jungle atmosphere, it’s always a struggle to keep things working,” she says. “Electricity is very poor, so we have to run our generator on diesel fuel, which is very expensive.”

Fowler splits her time between the 60-bed hospital and its outpatient clinic, which sees 125 to 200 people per day. She also provides training to Bangladeshis. Once a month she offers obstetric services in another clinic; three or four times a year she provides care in the country’s remote hilltrack areas.

Delivering health care in a third-world country can test any provider’s mettle. Heather Fowler has shown hers is made of steel.

Fowler and her colleagues also deal with cultural issues that complicate their patients’ lives. One woman failed to come to the hospital for timely treatment of gangrene because her son was out of the country, and women typically don’t travel without a male family member; by the time she arrived, her foot had fallen off. Another woman’s family couldn’t pay her dowry, so her husband’s family chopped off both her legs. “You see how defenseless and hopeless and helpless women can be in a very male-dominated society,” Fowler says. “They need a voice and someone who cares about them and can show them compassion.”

Fowler’s unwavering focus on meeting needs sustains her. After the terrorist attacks in America on Sept. 11, 2001, many in the predominantly Muslim country demonstrated against the U.S. But when a busload of angry citizens who planned to march against the hospital slid off the rain-soaked road, they instead came to the hospital as patients.

“At the time, I was the only doctor there, so I was really busy and didn’t have much time to think about it,” she says. “Plus I had just gotten to Bangladesh in 1999 and was not ready to leave my life’s dream.

“Even though it’s difficult, part of the attraction is that the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the people are so great,” she adds. “That offers great opportunities – I love the diversity and challenge of what I see.”

There are successes, too, like the 2.2-pound infant Fowler delivered just 31 weeks into the mother’s pregnancy; seven years later, that girl still visits the clinic.

“It’s such a large population, but you help individuals. You have to remember that,” she says. “I’ll admit it’s overwhelming at times. But it goes along with the D.O. philosophy, the commitment to the whole person, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It goes beyond just passing out a pill.”

Photos by : Dan Ray Photography

When it comes to staying in shape, Margaret Negrete, D.O.’89, does some heavy lifting.

This DMU grad gives new meaning to the phrase, “abs (and everything else) of steel.”

Her knowledge of the body has enhanced her success in bodybuilding, says Margaret Negrete. Even more important are her love of exercise and rock-solid workout ethic.

She has the medals to show for it: In the past year alone, she captured third place in the lightweight division of the International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) North American Championships in Cleveland and first place in the National Physique Committee (NPC) Masters Nationals in Pittsburgh. She also won the 2009 NPC USA Championships in Las Vegas in the lightweight class.

“When she took the stage here, flashing an insanely well developed set of abdominals and a polished overall stage presence, the El Paso anesthesiologist took the judges’ breath away,” wrote equally breathless IFBB women’s historian Steve Wennerstrom.

The accomplishments of the five-foot, one-inch, 113-pound Texan are even weightier in light of her longevity in the sport. As a DMU student, she landed a part-time job as a gym attendant at the city’s downtown YMCA, where she started lifting weights. Her workmates encouraged her to enter the Des Moines Classic bodybuilding competition in 1985. She won.

“I continued competing all through medical school and my residency,” says Negrete, who practices at El Paso’s Las Palmas Medical Center. “I’ve been competing for so many years. One of my main goals was to place first at nationals, so that was nice.”

Another highlight was winning a competition in Venice Beach, CA, in 1997. Her husband and bodybuilding buddy, Scott Stein, also won. “It was a spur-of-themoment thing. We were there on vacation and were getting ready for a competition in Texas a few weeks later,” Negrete recalls. “It was fun to be at the old Gold’s Gym where Arnold [Schwarzenegger] worked out.”

The couple has made fitness part of their family life. Their daughters, Alex and Daryl, each have won teenage fitness national titles in competitions involving gymnastics, dance and cheerleading. Stein, a dentist, and Negrete also help keep each other on track in the gym.

“It’s easy to blow off working out with the activities of daily life,” Negrete says. “With work, we usually don’t get to the gym until 9 at night, then we have to be at work early. My husband helps me because he works out, too.”

Competing regularly is motivating, too. “I think most doctors are goal-oriented people,” she notes. “When I enter a competition, I know, for example, what I have to do the next six months to get ready.”

Achieving the physical symmetry, muscularity and definition needed to compete successfully entails disciplined, strategic workouts and a high-protein, lowcarbohydrate diet, she explains. “I’ve learned over the years how my body responds,” she says. “Being a doctor has enhanced that. As I’m trying to develop certain muscle groups, understanding anatomy and physiology has helped me a lot in getting the results I want. And the mind-body orientation of osteopathic medicine has been good for me, too.”

Her preparation as a D.O. helped in another way. “When I was in medical school, I used to run every day around 5 a.m. with one of my classmates, and it was so darned cold,” she laughs. “I guess that’s why I took up weightlifting.”

Many physicians by nature are hard-working, competitive multi-taskers, but Gerardo Goldberger, D.O.’91, takes it to the extreme. Just one of the athletic events he competes in involves:
• a 30-mile bicycle race up a mountain,
• a four-mile run on forest trails,
• a 1.1-mile lake swim,
• a 5.5-mile run over rough trails,
• another half-mile lake swim,
• an eight-mile trail run,
• yet another half-mile lake swim
• and a final 0.7-mile sprint-climb.

Those who finish this annual Survival of the Shawangunks triathlon, or “SOS,” in New York’s Shawangunk Mountain Range get a “Survivor” t-shirt and, at the finish line, a magnificent view of five states. “The event is limited to 150 people because there are certain risks involved,” Goldberger helpfully notes.

A board-certified orthopedic surgeon, chairman of the orthopedic surgery department at CentraState Medical Center and senior member of the Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute in Freehold, NJ, Goldberger has participated in extreme sports and, for that matter, extreme living since his childhood in Argentina. As a 16-year-old high school student, he began attending college at night (“My parents thought it was a good idea,” he says); he finished high school one morning and graduated with his associate’s degree that evening.

Goldberger also participated in rowing, tennis, swimming, water polo and rugby. At age 17, he competed for Argentina in squash at the World Maccabiah Games, the quadrennial Jewish Olympics held in Israel the year after the Olympics. Last year, he was among 25 athletes representing the United States in the Maccabiah Games triathlon. The event included a 1,500-meter swim in the Sea of Galilee, a 25-mile bicycle race and a 6.2-mile run.

“It was one of the most grueling triathlons I’ve experienced,” says Goldberger, who also was one of the U.S. team’s physicians. “It started at 6 a.m. when it was 98 degrees; when I finished the race, it was 105 degrees.”

The physician finished sixth in the master’s category. Even better was simply being at the games, which drew approximately 9,000 athletes. “I came to the U.S. at 18 years. It’s nice to give back to the country that gave me so many opportunities,” he says. “To march into the stadium packed with people, as part of the U.S. contingent, was very special.”

Goldberger attended Rutgers, where he played rugby and competed on the rowing team. He competed in his first triathlon in 1986 as a way to stay in shape for rowing; since then, he’s competed in eight Ironman Triathlons – which consist of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle race and a marathon of 26 miles, 385 yards – around the world and in more than 120 other races in the U.S. He represented the U.S. at the 2007 Aquathlon World Championships, an event that combines the swim and run legs of a triathlon.

“When you engage yourself in endurance sports, it’s a physical and mental challenge. I’ve learned that, yes, I can suffer and, yes, I can finish,” he says. “There’s a feeling of exhilaration when you’re in high-intensity sports.”

The disciplined preparation he devotes to physical fitness keeps him engaged, too. Goldberger trains with Brian Shea, a U.S.A. Triathlon-certified coach and nutritional consultant. He bikes, runs and swims from 4 to 7 a.m. most days, then sees patients in surgical and office rounds, followed by an afternoon bike ride or run. Despite his hectic schedule and family life, he gets seven hours of sleep every night.

“Believe me, when my head hits the pillow, I’m done,” he says.

In 2009, Goldberger created a sports medicine symposium – offered again this February – to educate endurance athletics, coaches and physicians on topics including training methods, altitude training and cardio evaluation. “In addition to our internationally renowned speakers, the symposium fosters interaction between athletes, physicians and coaches,” he says. “It’s a collaboration on training methodology and preparation.”

High-energy and highly musical, Pumptown includes Bill Hynek, DMU student Amy Hynek and her siblings, Amanda and Joe. The band performs original folk rock, rock, pop, country, “island country” and polka tunes with some drum solos in the mix.

Amy Hynek, D.O.’10 juggles music and medical education as skillfully as she plays guitar, drums, mandolin and more.

Life may seem boring
And a little mundane
When you are looking
Through opaque shades
But you’ve got to take them off
And don’t give up hope
Because life is one big kaleidoscope.
– from “Colors”

Life is anything but mundane when you hang around Pumptown.

During the band’s performances, member Bill Hynek might whip out a rainstick while son Joe simultaneously plays the bass drum and an accordion named Steve. Joe’s sisters Amy and Amanda make music on everything from guitars and snare drums to the mandolin and even a conch shell. Put the four Hyneks together, and you get one big rocking, rollicking musical kaleidoscope.

“Our music is eclectic,” says Amy, D.O.’10. “It varies so much by song.”

That’s an understatement: During the band’s recent performance in Des Moines – for which Amy arrived the evening before, taking a break from a surgical rotation in Detroit – tunes ranged from the toe-tapping country-beat “Get a Job” to the drum-intense “Ka Mate,” inspired by a New Zealand visitor to the family’s Ellston, IA, farm.

“She taught us the Maori war chant,” Amy says. “I took parts to write the song.”

The four Hyneks write all the band’s music, which Amy calls “a pretty nice creative outlet.” But it’s also an impressive feat, given she is a full-time medical student and her bandmates have day jobs. The fact they’re family helps keep them together; in fact, that’s what got them together.

“We grew up playing the guitar around the campfire. People started wanting us to play, so we decided to make it a band and see if we could get paid enough to pay for the equipment,” Amy recalls.

Six years and five CDs later, the band – named after a ghost town near the family farm – is now a loud, proud crowdpleaser that’s fun to watch and often funny. In the funky stomp “Bacon,” singer Joe shares insights on appealing to the fairer sex:

Up in the mountain where the air is clean
He pulled out a skillet and some Jimmy Dean
She said, “Smells good – whatcha got cooking?”
Like a fisherman, he got the hook in.
… Everyone knows: Girls like bacon.

Pumptown’s music reflects less-pleasing personal experiences, too, including online dating (“She’s Got a Cat”) and love gone bad (“Brain in the Pants Syndrome”). Several songs reflect the family’s travels, including the five winter holiday breaks they’ve spent on building missions in Mexico.

The band’s drum infusion stems from Amy’s love of the instrument, which she collects. Nature is featured prominently, too; for example, Pumptown’s environmentally themed CD “Greenspace” includes a pumped-up salute to biodiesel.

The band’s talents go beyond performance. In 2006, Joe and the siblings’ mom, Angie, wrote the musical “Farmer Song,” about a young couple struggling to survive the 1980s farm crisis and subsequent technology evolution. T he musical took second place in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s musical theater playwriting contest and earned a Robert E. Stewart Humanities Award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. It also was performed at the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival, to which one critic said it added a “new element of wholesomeness,” Amy recalls.

In 2007, the Hyneks took their love of music to yet another level by launching Farmer Song Fest, an annual musical celebration held during Memorial Day weekend on their farm. The fest features Pumptown and three other invited bands, drawing approximately 400 people ranging from little kids to senior citizens.

This year’s fest will be especially hectic, as it will occur on DMU’s commencement, May 29. The Hyneks will celebrate Amy’s graduation at the 10 a.m. ceremony and then head south. “We’ll load up the RV. I’ll have my biscuits and gravy ready,” says mom Angie. “After graduation we’ll head back to the farm for the festival.”

That’s fitting for a band that sings, in the lyrical track “Colors”:

We all are colors in every shade
A little crazy, in our own way.

Listen to Pumptown’s music and watch a video of the band performing at Pumptown.com.