How Old Skills Can Become New Again

This article was previously published by Dr. James Goydos' website.

In September 1985 I was a second-year medical student on vacation with three other students in a small beach community on Mexico’s western coast. One of the students had relatives living in Mexico and we were able to borrow a car and drive down to the local beach town. We expected to stay from the 15th to the 21st but on September 19, 1985 at 7:17 AM Mexico City was hit with an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

Growing up in California I had already lived through 3 larger earthquakes, but this one seemed much more intense. We were instructed to evacuate the coast because of the threat of a tsunami and so we quickly packed and headed inland. Now, the smart thing to do would have been to travel to Guadalajara and fly home, but being 20-something year old medical students, we instead traveled to Mexico City to help with the rescue efforts.

We arrived at the outskirts of the city at 3:30 PM and were stopped by local police. When our Spanish-speaking friend explained we were “American Doctors” we were driven in a military truck to an aid station set up in the parking lot of the Hospital de la Luz. We were put to work treating people brought in with minor injuries and giving out tetanus and typhoid vaccinations.

The four of us worked almost non-stop for the next 60 hours and helped a lot of people. However, the new skill that I learned didn’t take place until Sunday, September 23rd after I and my friends had gotten a few hours’ sleep on cots set up for the volunteers. When I awoke at around 6:00 AM, an elderly woman approached me and one of my friends who had also just awoken and asked us a question in Spanish, which neither of us could understand.

Once she saw we didn’t know what she wanted, she lead us to a tent on the far side of a giant parking lot. Entering the tent, we saw at least 20 women using sewing machines. The elderly woman spoke with a man standing to one side and he asked us in broken English if we knew how to use a sewing machine.

My friend had been taught to sew by her mother, but I had never used a sewing machine. The elderly woman smiled and said, “I show, I show” and lead me to an open machine. What they were doing was making hospital gowns, bandages, bed sheets, face masks, and other needed items. After being shown how the machine worked, I spent the next fifteen hours sewing big bolts of cloth into sheets and pillowcases. By the end I had gotten pretty good with the machine and churned out about 500 items all told.

Knowing how to use a sewing machine was not particularly useful when I became a surgeon. I was able to hem my own pants and make buttonholes in my shirts so I could roll up my sleeves, but that was about it. However, in March 2020 I was able to put my skills with a sewing machine to work when I designed and manufactured N99 HEPA filter face masks for use by healthcare workers.

There was a severe shortage of protective masks when the pandemic hit and I was able to sew over 1100 masks, distributing them free of charge to ICU personnel at seven different hospitals and three nursing facilities in New Jersey, New York, and Florida. These masks are not common cloth masks or even surgical masks.

To make a mask that could protect healthcare workers caring for patients with COVID-19, I needed to mold HEPA filter material so that it would fit tightly without leaks. This would have been impossible if I hadn’t been taught how to use a sewing machine by an elderly lady in a Mexico City parking lot amid the rubble of an earthquake 35 years ago.

About Dr. James Goydos

Dr. James Goydos is an expert in melanoma research and specialist in surgical oncology with an M.D. from Rutgers University. With over 20 years of experience as a Professor, Surgeon, and Clinical Trial Lead, he is a leading expert in his field.

Subscribe to James Goydos’ newsletter. Follow me on Good Men Project, Newsbreak, Hubpages, Loop, Medium, Instagram, Facebook,YouTube, Medika Life, Doximity, Github, Kaggle, Vocal, LinkedIn