HWS News
1 April 2026 • Alums From Campus to the Cardiac Ward
A new internship will send Hobart and William Smith students on life-saving international medical missions
A child with a heart defect from an emerging nation might wait years for surgery they likely will never get.
Delayed diagnoses, inadequate medical facilities and training converge with other limiting situations to keep 90 percent of the world’s 1.3 million children born each year with heart defects from receiving the treatment that can save them.
In his humanitarian work, Robert Raylman ’84 sees parents travel six hours or more each month — sometimes for as many as five years — for the chance to get their child on a surgical wait list. Raylman is CEO of Gift of Life International, an organization that has provided surgeries to more than 480 children in the Dominican Republic. This summer four HWS students will work with local teams there to save more lives.
In total, three funded trips are planned through 2027 with select HWS interns, who will travel with Raylman to join medical teams for one week at destinations still to be determined.
On site, students will observe surgeries, assist caregivers and witness the full process of care, from screening patients to caring for them in recovery. It’s an extraordinary process, but the most powerful moments come after surgery, Raylman says, when after spending days and nights praying over their children’s beds, families watch their children recover.
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“It’s like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders. They’re no longer hunched over or worried,” he says. “They’re alive again.”
For patients, the transformation is almost immediate, Raylman says. Children who struggled to breathe or play just days earlier, start walking down hospital hallways — sometimes even running — as soon as the day after surgery.
“The strength and resilience of kids is so beautiful,” Raylman says, “and that's what ignites me.”
After graduating from HWS with a degree in political science, Raylman worked for two decades in politics and government affairs before joining Gift of Life. For the past 18 years, he has been helping to build the organization’s network, traveling to more than 50 countries. Today, he spends more than 40 weeks a year on the road, meeting with patients, families and caregivers. The experience has transformed lives, he says, including his own.
“I have realized my life has consequence,” he says. “I found my calling in this work.”
The organization’s Metro New York Board Chair JT McFadden says the internship experience for HWS students will be immersive. “They’ll have the same scrubs as medical personnel, the same bus, the same meals — everything. When they arrive at the hospital, they’re part of the team.
Earlier this semester, Gift of Life representatives visited HWS to meet students with an interest in health care looking for real-world exposure. Scholarship selections for internships this summer will be announced later this spring.
Students’ travel, housing and meal expenses will be covered through program support from HWS and Gift of Life. Before they leave the U.S., students will spend three months preparing: meeting with Gift of Life stakeholders, connecting with board members and learning how the organization coordinates international medical missions.
Raylman credits his Hobart education for the open-minded approach his position requires to connect so many diverse nationalities, ages, personalities and professions. “You can’t look at every country through the same lens. You have to understand the culture, the systems and the people,” he says. “For me, that perspective began during my years at Hobart and William Smith.”
Founded in 1975, Gift of Life originally transported patients to the U.S. for their surgery. Five decades later, the U.S.-based humanitarian group has mostly replaced that approach with a worldwide infrastructure of trained local staff equipped to perform surgeries on site, so children can remain in or at least near their home country. In 2025 alone, the organization raised approximately $3 million in donations and another $8 million of in-kind service from volunteer medical providers, facilitating more than 6,000 procedures in 80 countries.
Above: An on-the-ground Gift of Life International medical team
