It boggles the mind. Each day, 7,000 tons of unused medical supplies go to waste in America. They are either incinerated - polluting our atmosphere in the process - or carted off to landfills. At the same time, thousands of patients are turned away from hospitals and medical centers in developing countries because they lack necessary supplies. Doc to Dock's mission is simple: Correct this imbalance.

Not only is Doc to Dock saving lives, it is sending a message to the world, according to its creator, 51-year-old Bruce Charash, M.D. "I want the world to see us in a better light," he says, "to see we're more than a foreign policy, we're more than a government; we're a nation of communities and non-profit organizations trying to help. Doc to Dock sends supplies to help enable the medical community in developing countries - supplies that are in really good shape. By doing this, I think we're helping build diplomatic relations."

A leading New York City cardiologist, Charash witnessed hospital waste firsthand. Once a medical kit is opened, all the instruments in the kit - each one individually sterilized, wrapped, and never opened - cannot be reused, according to U.S. government regulations. So if a doctor needs one instrument in a kit of 300, the other 299 must be discarded. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the incineration of medical supplies is the third largest source of dioxin emissions, a significant environmental carcinogen.

Charash never gave any of this much thought. "It was just the way things were done," he said. While he may not have questioned it outwardly, the waste of it all burrowed in his brain … along with the germ of an idea. It would take a chance encounter at a conference for the idea to take form.

In 2005, he was invited to attend the first Clinton Global Initiative in New York. This annual meeting convenes a diverse group of approximately 1,000 world leaders, kings, prime ministers, international entrepreneurs, media moguls, and savvy businesspeople to examine global challenges. Every attendee is required to commit to doing something to improve the world.

Charash had already impressed one Clinton. He had worked with New York Senator Hillary Clinton on a program he created to help middle-school teachers make science fun for their students, called Apple P.I.E. (Partners in Education). "She saw I was motivated and could build a charity," Charash said.

Punctuality is one of Charash's hallmarks. The Clinton Global Initiative conference opened at 7:30. By 7:31, he was registered and had his name badge in hand. The opening session wasn't until nine. "I was standing in this giant room with about eight other people when I was approached by a woman who identified herself as a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor. I agreed to be interviewed. Her first question was, 'What is your commitment [to improve the world]?' Without giving it any thought I said, 'I'm going to send medical supplies to Africa.' I guess subconsciously I was leaning that way, but up to that point my travel experiences to developing countries had consisted of a spring break in Cancun."

She followed up by asking for the program's name. "I wanted to say something clever. Something about being a doctor. When I said doc, I saw an image of a dock in my mind. 'Doc to Dock,' I said."

Her article, "Celebrity 'Hyper-Agents' Transform Philanthropy," was posted on Christian Science Monitor's Web site that evening and was published in the paper the next day.

His comments did not go unnoticed, prompting requests for relief from such dignitaries as the First Lady of Burundi, the Finance Minister of Nigeria, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia.

"It was sadly reflective of the absolute desperation and need there is. To have the leaders of these countries come to me with their hats in their hands begging me to save the lives of their people was humbling," explained Charash. He vowed he would make good on his spontaneous response.

Today, the success of Doc to Dock has exceeded his wildest imagination. In the first six months of operation, $1.5 million worth of supplies, eight tons in total, have been collected. Three shipments have been delivered to Ghana, Benin, and Ethiopia.

Although his organization was founded on a simple idea, getting it off the ground has been anything but. Charash wears many hats, in charge of public relations, marketing, communications, fund-raising, and more. He is a man in perpetual motion. There are board reports to be filed, hospitals to communicate with, funds to be raised, travel schedules to arrange. His cell phone rings incessantly.

Recently, he has been busy assembling a board of directors and advisors for his fledgling non-profit. They include Lauren Bush, the President's niece, and her mother, Sharon, as well as Deloris Jordan, Michael Jordan's mother, who is also working to build a hospital in Nairobi.

A born-and-bred New Yorker, Charash was born at New York Hospital, where he attended medical school (Cornell Medical School is affiliated with what is now New York-Presbyterian Hospital.) "I delivered babies with the doctor who delivered me, in the same room I was born," he explains. Now affiliated with both Lenox Hill and Mt. Sinai hospitals, Charash has scaled his cardiology practice down to devote himself to Doc to Dock. Not only does he give of his time but a great deal of his own money as well. Eventually, he hopes the organization will become more self-sufficient and he can return to cardiology full time. He is putting a Doc to Dock team in place to ensure this happens. Today, there are five full-time employees.

"As a practicing doctor, I don't really see myself as saving lives, I see myself as shepherding people through the system to make them feel better. Doc to Dock is going to save more lives than anything I'll ever do. Doc to Dock has been a Pandora's Box. It has destroyed my life in the best possible way," he said with a laugh.

It costs $20,000 to send a container to Africa filled with an average of $500,000 worth of medical supplies. He is now in talks with the Pentagon about the possibility of Navy warships sending the supplies to Africa for free, and with private air freight companies that are also willing to donate their services. "If we can drive down the cost by donation and reduced costs, we can do more good," he said.

Reawaken the Sleeping Giant
Charash has been successful in getting the support of the government and the wealthy, but is now focusing on getting mainstream society behind his cause.

After his attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto proclaimed, "I fear all we have done is to wake a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve." These prophetic words resonate with Charash. "If we utilized our potential as a country and reawaken the sleeping giant, there is nothing we cannot do," he said. "The truth is the bottom of the pyramid can move the top. I'd like to see the average American become more aware that they can do something to help, aware that a small investment can make a huge difference in the developing world."

Charash sees himself as one such individual, "who wasn't famous, who didn't have wealth or fame or corporate connections, who made a commitment to change the world." His Clinton connection, however, has helped. "President Clinton became our biggest supporter. He was pleased that my idea came out of his conference. He has helped open many corporate doors for us," he says.

IV Line Saves a Boy's Life
On hand to oversee the delivery of 655 boxes of medical supplies and 30 hospital beds to Hubert Maga Hospital in Cotonou, Benin this summer, Charash was concerned to see a five-year-old boy suffering from malaria. He was not responding to oral therapies and was in desperate need of IV antibiotic therapy. "The irony was the hospital had the antibiotics he needed but it didn't have any IV line," explained Charash. "His prognosis was not good."

A few minutes later, the truck with the supplies pulled up. "We all dove into that truck to find IV line. It was inserted into his arm, giving him the antibiotics that saved his life." Charash pauses. "Wow. We actually saved one life right there, right then, with something as simple as an IV line that would have ended up in a landfill."

Fully aware of how dire the conditions were going to be in this Benin hospital, Charash was still shocked to see it up close.

"Doctors are forced to wash surgical gloves and dry them on a clothesline. There was not even one bar of soap in the whole hospital. It is not uncommon for three mothers who just gave birth to share the same bed or for four newborns to share one incubator," he sadly explained. "Many patients sleep on the floor because there are just not enough beds.

" The statistics he shares are staggering. In Benin, one out of five children will die of malaria and in all of Africa, a child dies of the disease every 30 seconds. "The real heroes are the doctors and nurses who stayed in their country when they could have fled to Western countries where they could make a great deal of money," Charash says. "Instead, they treat their patients without having soap for their own hands. They are the heroes."

Beatrice Radji, the director of the hospital, knew the supplies were coming but when she actually saw them, "she fell into my arms and wept," said Charash. Radji surprised Charash and Magdalena White, vice president of development for Doc to Dock, with authentic wooden African tribal masks at the airport on their day of departure. "She gave me another great idea," he said with a chuckle. "I am going to try to acquire a piece of local art from every country we visit. Then one day I will open a gallery showcasing the pieces with an explanation of who we are and where we have been."

Seventeen hospitals in the United States are now part of the program, and word is spreading. Although he conceptualized the idea two years ago, Doc to Dock has only been up and running for six months. Other sources of donations are hospitals and medical practices countrywide that are getting rid of equipment because of renovations or to make way for newer models.

Next Stop: Africa
Doc to Dock's 3,000-square-foot warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., houses boxes of syringes, surgical gloves, gauze pads, wheelchairs, baby cribs, walkers, barrels overflowing with crutches, hospital beds, stretchers, oxygen machines, and EKG machines. Shelves are carefully labeled: anesthesia; respiratory; cardiovascular; endoscopy; laparoscopy; general medical; general surgical. From the outside, few would guess that this nondescript building holds the goods that will save lives on another continent.

Supplies are not just sent haphazardly to Africa. All donations are entered into a database that hospital administrators access. They then select what is most needed. Recipient hospitals are carefully selected. "We make sure they are in a democratic country with an infrastructure we can work with. We are being very careful to make sure the supplies get to the people who need them," said Charash.

Conventions: Land of Opportunity
Doc to Dock sees the convention market as a land of opportunity. It was the official charity of the TCT (Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics) Symposium in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), at the end of October. Each of the 15,000 expected attendees were asked to donate a stethoscope. Charash was on hand manning the collection bins, as was White who was with the CRF before joining Doc to Dock.

"In Africa, stethoscopes are in such great need. In Benin, they had one stethoscope for the entire hospital," Charash explained.

The TCT Symposium was the first convention Doc to Dock participated in, but Charash says it will not be the last. He hopes to attend at least one a month. "Just like we asked cardiologists to bring stethoscopes, we will ask orthopedic surgeons to bring plaster materials and splints, we will ask pediatricians to bring thermometers, tongue depressors, and otoscopes. We will ask for instruments symbolic of that profession that are hard to get from operating rooms, from hospitals, from medical suppliers."

An ancillary project is already in the works. Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist specializing in infectious diseases, is working with Doc to Dock to stock medical bags with supplies that will be stored at Kennedy International Airport. Charash plans to "stock 10,000 bags in the next three years, which will be used to treat one million people. Doctors and medical students traveling to Africa for medical missions can pick these bags up at JFK."

When Charash is asked why the supplies he collects are not used to help the needy in the United States, he says, "Nobody has ever been denied healthcare in the United States because we didn't have supplies, or because there is a shortage of syringes or IV lines."

Living a Family Legacy
Devotion to medicine and helping others has been handed down through the generations. His father, Dr. Leon Charash, is a leading authority on pediatric neuromuscular diseases and is chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His mother, Phyllis, is a philanthropist who was a former president of the women's division of the UJA Federation in New York and is a vice president and on the board of directors for a care facility in Long Island, N.Y. His older sister is an artist, one younger brother is a trauma surgeon, the other a clinical psychologist. He recently learned from his parents, to his amazement, that his grandmother was involved in a program called "Ship a Box," which sent care packages to Europe. "I guess Doc to Dock is imprinted on my DNA," he jokes.

Pursuing a career in medicine just seemed natural. "I am the oldest boy in my family and would often accompany my dad to the hospital. I never considered doing anything else."

Although accustomed to being surrounded by the trappings of success, Charash says his experiences have been humbling. "What happens to me is less important than my ability to help others who are going to suffer and die before their time. If you think about it, if I died right now at 51, as sad and tragic as it is by American standards, my life would still be better than 99.9 percent of people today. Who has had a life that is as good as mine? I've had great dinners, I've seen great art, heard great music, and I've loved and been loved."

° Andrea Doyle is Convene's senior writer. The Leading by Example series is sponsored by the Canadian Tourism Commission. Visit its Web site at www.CanadaMeetings.com.