5,993 Miles to Mongolia
College of Health young alum using his degree to serve on global scale
By Sarah Shebek
When Leif Sorensen received his English teaching mission call from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to Mongolia, he thought he might be headed to an island in the Pacific. He’d put his willingness to leave the country at a 10 out of 10 on a questionnaire, but he had to Google the country’s location.
The first image results popped up of Genghis Khan on a giant steel horse, and Sorensen quickly realized that he was heading about as far away from the Pacific islands as possible. Fortunately, his adventurous spirit and sense of humor helped him adapt, and those two years, plus a degree in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, changed the course of his life.
“It took me 10 weeks just to learn to read the Cyrillic alphabet and memorize basic numbers,” he said. “When I got on the plane, I tried to introduce myself to my Mongolian seatmate, but he smiled and replied to me in English—he had not understood a single thing I had said. The good or bad news with Mongolia is that there is very little English support, you’re thrown right in, and it’s sink or swim.”
Sorensen spent two years in Mongolia teaching English to students and eventually became fluent in the difficult language. During his time living in rural communities, he noticed the barriers to healthcare that many of his students and their families faced. Determined to find a solution, once he returned to the U.S., he met with academic advisors at the University to figure out his best path to a career in medicine.
“They said I could do biology or kinesiology, basically plants or humans,” he said. “I took the human route, and I thought my time in the program was great. I really appreciated all the knowledge I gained.”
While Sorensen was completing his freshman year in kinesiology, he met surgeon Raymond Price, MD, the co-founder for the University’s Center for Global Surgery (CGS). Price heard that he was fluent in Mongolian, and he needed a translator for CGS’s Mongolia projects that focused on training local surgeons and physicians in trauma, breast cancer, and laparoscopy. Sorensen saw his opportunity to help improve Mongolia’s access to healthcare, and enthusiastically joined the global surgery team.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s restriction on international travel, he served for two years virtually as an interpreter and researcher in Zoom meetings with a multi-disciplinary board of Mongolian and American breast cancer specialists. Together, they discussed difficult cases and the best course of treatment. That work was despite a 14-hour time difference the pandemic, and his full-time student load.
“Global health is a very common term, but global surgery not so much,” he said. “It requires a whole team of trained specialists to be able to improve surgical capacity. We are working with physicians around the world who want to stay in their country and help—they can’t travel to the U.S. for hands-on training, so we need to go to them.”
In 2022, he returned to Mongolia with Price to work with breast cancer patients and help interpret an Advanced Trauma Life Support course in the countryside city of Murun. The course taught rural physicians how to save someone’s life after they experience trauma like getting hit by a car or falling off a horse. The training is crucial because many Mongolians live nomadic lifestyles, and it can take them a full day of travel just to reach the nearest major hospital.
“In the U.S., many people have health insurance and paid time off, liberties that are protected with your job,” he said. “In Mongolia, they’re herders and farmers who don’t have that type of freedom. They need to get back to their animals and their families quickly, and my goal is to make that possible. Access to timely healthcare should be a privilege for all people, not only for those in first-world countries.”
Sorensen quickly realized that he was passionate about global health, and that he could leverage his undergraduate degree in kinesiology to pursue graduate research for a full-time career. He’s currently enrolled in the University’s Master of Science in Clinical Investigation program, with plans to gain more intensive surgical knowledge in medical school.
In the meantime, he’s already getting a leg up in the field. Alongside their successful work in Mongolia, Price asked him if he’d help develop a training program for basic laparoscopic surgery in Cambodia. To do that, Sorensen would need to master a laparoscopic training box that Price planned to use to instruct surgeons.
“I got this box that had little tasks inside, like cutting gauze or stacking beads,” he said. “It was so cool, so I hooked up my phone and went straight to YouTube to learn more. I spent multiple weeks figuring it out until I got proficient enough to work on the laparoscopic training curriculum for Cambodia.”
Laparoscopy is an essential tool for surgeons to treat conditions like gallbladder disease, which in Cambodia previously averaged around a two-week hospital stay and an invasive open surgery. However, following the introduction of the laparoscopic surgery training program, the team saw the hospital length of stay drop down to an average of less than two days.
“I just got back from another trip to Cambodia, and since our program’s first course in 2022 we’ve been able to safely train more than 250 residents and surgeons in basic laparoscopy,” Sorensen said. “The goal is that if everything goes well in our work, then we don’t have to be there, and it will continue sustainably long after we are gone.”
Sorensen is dedicating his life to make change on a global scale, and his college degree at the University of Utah has been key in helping him find his passion and make an impact.
“I did the best I could in school, but I wanted to balance that with my desire to help others and my global research,” he said. “I kept the big picture in mind so I could remember why I was getting my degree. It’s a stepping stone for me to get the knowledge I need to make a difference in the world”
