SHARING HIS TALENTS—Dr. Christopher Smith of Camarillo, center, is surrounded by Nigerian children. The physician spent 10 weeks in the sub-Saharan desert with the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders to help treat an epidemic of spinal meningitis. Despite poverty, intermittent famine and continual conflicts, African people are for the most part optimistic and joyful, according to a Camarillo doctor who traveled to the sub-Saharan desert earlier this year to help curtail an epidemic of a potentially deadly infectious disease.

Dr. Christopher Smith spent 10 weeks in remote regions of northern Nigeria with a team of international doctors from Médecins Sans Frontiéres to treat patients with cerebrospinal meningitis, which is characterized by inflammation of the tissue that surrounds the brain or spinal cord. The organization, also known as Doctors Without Borders, provides medical care to populations in crisis throughout the world.

"We were clearly welcomed anywhere we went. Nigerians are poor, but they're open, welcoming and happy people," Smith said. There is no electricity during the day and only sporadic service at night, he said, and temperatures often reach triple digits, yet the people are resourceful, dignified and generous.

"They care for their neighbors, grow their own food, and there is something natural about getting up with the sun and going down with the sun," Smith said.

A 1976 graduate of USC School of Medicine, Smith, 63, spent most of his career as an emergency room physician and family practitioner in Ventura County, including 22 years as an ER doctor at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo.

He decided to retire in October 2007 after suffering an acute aortic dissection, a lifethreatening event he said he survived only because it occurred while he was finishing up a night shift at the hospital as other physicians prepared to start their day shifts.

While recovering from two long surgeries, Smith decided not to work full-time anymore but to continue to use his skills to help others.

He joined Doctors Without Borders in November 2008 and received notice in February that his services were needed in Nigeria. The journey to Africa involved two long overseas flights and a 12-hour car ride on dusty, rugged roads, but once he reached his destination, Smith said, he looked forward to the work ahead.

The doctors and other volunteers who comprise the nonprofit group provide assistance to many people in Third World countries, helping victims of natural or manmade disasters and war and conducting surveys to identify the origins of epidemics and prevent them whenever possible.

"Médecins Sans Frontiéres maintains complete independence from all political, economic or religious powers," Smith said.

While in Jigawa State, Nigeria, Smith visited remote villages to determine what medicines were needed and to treat patients. He and other doctors taught workers at local health clinics how to recognize and treat cerebrospinal meningitis, which can be caused by a viral or a bacterial infection. Symptoms include headache, fever and nausea. The more deadly bacterial meningitis also causes a stiff neck.

Early diagnosis and treatment is essential to prevent deafness, brain damage, sight problems and death.

"I worked 30 years in medicine, made a lot of interventions and made a lot of difference for a lot of people and saved many lives, but I'm sure that in the 10 weeks I was in Nigeria I saved more lives simply by providing the medicines they need that they would not have gotten otherwise," Smith said.

Smith's wife, Ellen, superintendent of schools for Moorpark Unified School District, said her husband is known in the community as a caring physician with good bedside manners who wants to use his talents to assist humanity. She said his recent journey inspired her husband of 40 years to request more assignments with Doctors Without Borders.

"All throughout his life he's had the goal to use his skills he's amassed in that kind of situation—to help all those people," she said.

The physician, who is president of Camarillo Hospice, shared his experiences in Africa at a Rotary Club meeting in Moorpark last month, using a slide show and PowerPoint to illustrate events.

"The presentation was excellent," said Chris Childers, a member of the Moorpark Rotary. The local resident said she was surprised to learn that Doctors Without Borders assigns targeted duties to doctors in the field, focusing its efforts on one infectious disease or epidemic outbreak at a time. "It's heroic of him. He and his wife are givers," said Moorpark resident Dale Parvin, who attended the presentation.

Ellen and Christopher Smith have two grown children, Kendall, 27, and Connor, 24.