We recently interviewed Ingrid Crocco for Women’s History Month. Ingrid is a ReSurge Medical Volunteer Nurse with a 43-year career at Yale New Haven Hospital covering specialties, including cardiac surgery, trauma, and vascular surgery. Ingrid has been volunteering with ReSurge since 1995. She has gone on 37 surgical team trips, bringing life-changing surgical care to communities worldwide while training local medical professionals. For Ingrid, what began as a spontaneous opportunity developed into decades of transformative service.
Can you start by sharing a bit about yourself and your background?
I am an operating room nurse who recently retired after working at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut for 43 years. I grew up overseas. My mother was Norwegian, and my father was American military. I came to the United States for college, and I’ve been here ever since. I met my husband during my first week in Connecticut, and three months later we were engaged. We’ve been married for nearly 45 years now and have two daughters who both live in Hawaii.
Throughout my career at Yale, I’ve worked in several specialties. I was a staff nurse for many years, then specialized in cardiac surgery and became the assistant head nurse for cardiac surgery. I worked as the evening shift charge person while raising my children, and my specialties included trauma and vascular surgery. My true passion, though, has always been transplant surgery, and it still excites me to this day. In my years before retirement, I served as an educator for the operating room, which I loved despite not having a formal degree in education. As they told me, “40 years of experience means you can certainly teach what you know.”
Why did you choose to become a nurse?
I initially went to college in Virginia to become a veterinarian. One Sunday, I was walking my little black poodle, Buttons, when a German shepherd attacked him. The dog was okay, but we had to take him to the human ER because the veterinary base was closed. The experience left me so upset and drained that I questioned whether I could handle being a veterinarian. My mom asked me, “Do you think seeing people torn apart is going to be easier?” And I thought, “It’s got to be!” So I changed my major to nursing.
Interestingly, throughout my clinical rotations, I didn’t particularly enjoy any of the specialties. I had to decide to become an operating room nurse without ever having been in an OR. After graduation, I applied for positions in Ketchikan, Alaska, at Yale, and NYU Medical Center in New York City. I ended up picking Yale, and that’s where I spent my whole career.
What interested you in ReSurge International and how did you become involved in volunteer work at ReSurge?
While I was a charge nurse in the operating room at Yale, a couple of surgeons who worked with ReSurge (formerly Interplast) needed someone to join their team after another person had to withdraw. They asked if I wanted to go to Brazil with them. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to help others while expanding my horizons. As a nurse, you naturally want to help people, and in the operating room, patients depend solely on you. This was a chance to make a difference in a new environment and share my knowledge.
After that first trip, I was hooked. I thought, Oh my god, I have to do this again! So I signed up year after year.
What has been one of your most rewarding moments while volunteering with ReSurge?
From a broad perspective, one of the most rewarding aspects has been the virtual training we’ve developed since COVID. Working with other educators from ReSurge to create these programs has been incredible. With virtual training, we have protected time dedicated to education. Sometimes we’ll have 20-30 nurses and physicians joining to learn from us.
What makes this especially rewarding is that we can offer something truly valuable. The participants tell us what they want to learn, and because we’ve traveled extensively with ReSurge, we understand the barriers they face. We customize our teaching approach to fit their environment and resources, ensuring that our methods can be integrated into their existing practice.
What are some of the greatest opportunities you’ve encountered while volunteering with ReSurge?
The opportunity to share my knowledge is such a great feeling. I get excited about being able to share ideas, cultures, and customs. Every trip brings the chance to travel, learn new things, and experience different cultures. That’s a huge benefit of being a volunteer at ReSurge. I make it a point to enjoy the local people and culture no matter how tired I might be after a 12-hour workday. Every trip is a new opportunity, and that’s what makes it special.
What are some of the most memorable patient interactions you’ve had while volunteering?
One that still moves me to tears happened about 20 years ago in Burma (now Myanmar). We treated a young girl who had been badly burned, with her neck fused to her chest so she couldn’t lift her head. All she wanted, she told us, was to look up and see the moon.
She would only let me care for her. The anesthesia team wanted me to hold her while they put her to sleep, and afterward, she didn’t want the recovery room nurse, she wanted me. By the end of our two-week trip, she could lift her chin. It’s the kind of experience that breaks your heart but is also the best thing ever.
All she wanted was to see the moon, something we take for granted. But we made that happen for her. That’s what makes ReSurge’s work so powerful. There are probably 20 other stories I could share that are equally moving.
How do you collaborate with other medical professionals, both local and international, when working on a Resurge project?
In the operating room, where surgeries can last for hours, you become very familiar with one another. It’s a vulnerable place, so communication is essential. You have to be careful about what you say, how you say it, and when you say it.
I’ve also learned when it’s appropriate to interject and when to stay quiet. Not every moment calls for conversation, and sometimes a conversation isn’t appropriate at all. You need to be mindful not to impose opinions or ideas that might conflict with a local culture or religion.
Are there any specific medical skills or knowledge you’ve developed through Resurge that you didn’t have before?
At Yale, we had everything we needed. It’s an affluent hospital with significant endowments. But when you go to places that don’t have those resources, you have to think creatively. Here at an institution in the U.S., if you need something, you can access it fairly quickly However, when you are working in a low-resource setting that item could take 10 days to arrive ––if it’s even available at all. So you have to ask: What can we create to provide the same quality of care for this patient?
For example, we once needed labels for containers of different solutions on the sterile table. They didn’t have labels and probably wouldn’t have them in the future, so giving them our labels wouldn’t be sustainable. Instead, we used three different container sizes and created a whiteboard system where we wrote down what was in each size. That’s the kind of problem-solving you develop.
How does ReSurge support medical volunteers?
They do everything for us! They’re amazing at organizing and communicating. ReSurge has different committees like nursing committees, anesthesia committees, etc. facilitating conversations with our colleagues from around the country. Then the committee chairs meet to exchange ideas so everyone’s on the same page. Communication is key to everything, and that’s ReSurge’s greatest asset. They are excellent communicators.
Do you have any advice for healthcare professionals who are thinking of volunteering with organizations like Resurge?
I would recommend that anyone in healthcare with a passion for humanity try this. It transforms you as a person. It takes you out of your comfort zone and makes your practice more complete. When you come back to your own working space, you bring new knowledge and perspective. It’s incredibly fulfilling to know that you’ve traveled somewhere and taught people new skills, and now those people can provide better care for their patients. It just grows you as a human being.
How do you see the future of volunteer healthcare work evolving, especially when confronted with global challenges like healthcare access and inequality?
Virtual training will play an increasingly important role, especially given the current global unrest that sometimes prevents us from reaching the places that need us most. Virtual education allows us to continue providing support when in-person visits aren’t possible.
Global conferences are also essential because they allow healthcare professionals to share their innovations and strategies worldwide. I had the opportunity to present in Amsterdam a few years ago, and while presenting was valuable, listening to others for three days was even more informative. For example, I learned that in Australia, they collect bread tags and melt them down to make prosthetics. Who would have known? People are incredibly creative globally, and these conferences let us learn from each other.
Ingrid Crocco’s journey demonstrates how medical expertise can transform lives globally. Through her work with ReSurge International, she reveals that sustainable healthcare impact requires direct patient care and the education of local medical professionals. As healthcare needs continue to vary around the globe, Ingrid shows us how blending medical expertise with an understanding of local conditions can create meaningful and sustainable change. Her belief that “volunteers gain more than they give” conveys that when we extend ourselves to help others––whether enabling a young burn victim to see the moon or training doctors across continents ––we create positive change for patients and experience extensive personal and professional growth ourselves.
By Lucia Giallorenzo
