Andrew Beeghly had spent some time in Haiti prior to 2010; the physician flew there for three different stints working in an aid clinic in Mahotte, in 2002, 2003 and 2005. During those stints Andrew Beeghly worked as a medic and team engineer at the Haiti Medical Clinic, offering aid to those in need and helping the community as much as they could. Andrew Beeghly grew very fond of the people and the culture in Haiti, so when the news reached him of the massive earthquake that had decimated the region in 2010, he knew what he had to do.

Right away Andrew Beeghly signed up for the Haiti Disaster Response Team, which was dispatched to Daquini in January 2010 for humanitarian aid and relief efforts. During his time there Andrew Beeghly saw much pain and suffering, and it affected him profoundly.

“It was very tough to see all the suffering that the earthquake had caused,” Andrew Beeghly says. “I have seen people suffer, but something about this event really touched me in a new way. Maybe it was the scale of the event, the way it had just come out of nowhere. Maybe it was the fact that these people had done nothing to deserve such suffering. I don’t know, whatever it was, it really got me.”

And Andrew Beeghly is no stranger to witnessing suffering. Haiti holds a close place in Andrew Beeghly’s heart, but the physician also joined humanitarian efforts after the 2005 tsunami in Sri Lanka, and spend three weeks in Bangladesh in 2011 as part of a medical relief program in that country. “I feel a kind of calling, yes, I would say a calling. I hear about these disasters, these tragedies, and I always think about what there is that I can do. It’s always the first thing I think when I hear about some tragedy: ‘What can I do to help?’ It’s in my nature, I guess.”

In addition to his humanitarian work, Andrew Beeghly is a Battalion Surgeon for the 5th Special Forces Group of the US Army, and was deployed in Afghanistan in 2013, where he earned over a dozen medals for service.