When it comes to more serious health issues, it can be difficult to find a specialist in the Virgin Islands. Either there isn’t one on island in the specialized field that you need, or so few of them that appointments can take weeks or even months. Dr. Ofer Sagiv, a visiting cardiologist and vascular specialist, seeks to ease that burden by offering services in the Virgin Islands, often bringing a team of specialists with him to his base at the Princesse Health Center on St. Croix.

Dr. Sagiv was born in Israel, though his family moved to New York when he was 11 years old. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his Bachelor of Science in bioengineering, before entering a special international medicine program offered by Columbia University in conjunction with Ben Gurion University of the Negev-Medical School for International Health.

“That was actually what sparked my interest in working in different places in the world,” he said. “I spent three to four months working in Ethiopia while in medical school. They sort of put you where you were needed. For the first couple of months, they put me in a major city there and after a month and a half, they put us in a rural area. You show up as a medical student and set up a tent, and after a couple hours, hundreds of people are waiting to be seen. That’s where I really started thinking about doing things outside of the box.”

Read more about Dr. Sagiv here.