LA VEGA, Dominican Republic — Inside a small exam room at Hospital Regional Universitario Dr. Luis Manuel Morillo King, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Hector De Los Santos moves from patient to patient alongside another optometry technician, checking vision and preparing patients for examination.
Outside the exam room, his connection to the hospital is just as apparent. Dominican staff stop to talk and joke with him, and bring him local food and small gifts. In two weeks, the Airman who arrived as part of Amistad 2026 has become something closer to family.
For De Los Santos, that connection runs deeper. He grew up in Santo Domingo before moving to the United States, and Amistad 2026 brought him back to the Dominican Republic, wearing a U.S. Air Force uniform and using the medical skills he gained through his service.
“Being back home and helping out my own people, it honestly feels amazing,” De Los Santos said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
De Los Santos said his Dominican roots give him a connection with patients that goes beyond simply speaking the same language.
“I think it does help getting the patients to kind of open up more,” he said. “As soon as they come in and they see that I speak Spanish, and then I speak their Spanish, you see the sense of relief that they get in the room.”
That familiarity has extended to the Dominican medical professionals working around him.
“It’s been an overwhelming feeling of just happiness and camaraderie being here with them, working alongside them,” De Los Santos said. “We’ve been learning from each other.”
For Dominican Dr. Miguel Rivera Hernandez, doctor of Geriatrics, the connection began almost immediately.
“The connection started from the first day of work,” Rivera said. “I remember the first thing I said to him was, ‘You’re Dominican,’ and he jokingly responded, ‘Well, of course I am.’”
Rivera said De Los Santos’ dedication to patients, sense of responsibility and the way he interacted with people in the hospital’s outpatient department stood out to him.
“I think there was that sense of empathy in knowing that one of our own was giving his best in a foreign land,” Rivera said.
The relationship grew during the mission, with Rivera bringing De Los Santos local coffee, fruits and the two developing a friendship beyond their work at Morillo King.
For De Los Santos, reminders of home were never far away. His family made the roughly two-hour drive from Santo Domingo to spend time with him during the mission.
“They made the drive. We spent an afternoon together,” he said. “It was amazing. Unfortunately, there’s never enough time.”
Even after they returned home, De Los Santos said he continued to see pieces of his own family in the people coming through the hospital.
“I see my family in our patients,” De Los Santos said. “It’s just been such an amazing experience to come back and be able to serve my own community.”
The experience is more than a homecoming. Amistad 2026 is also De Los Santos’ first mission as an optometry technician — and the career field itself is still new to him.
De Los Santos cross-trained into optometry in late 2025 after previously serving in the Services career field. He graduated in November,, putting him into a new clinical career field only months before deploying his skills during Amistad.
At his home clinic, De Los Santos said he typically sees approximately 15 to 20 patients during a duty day. At Morillo King, he and the optometry team have been seeing anywhere from 60 to 100.
“A day here is actually very fast-paced,” De Los Santos said. “We want to provide as much care to as many people as we can.”
The increased patient volume has required him to become more efficient while still providing the optometrist the information needed to evaluate each patient.
“Being here has honestly taught me to be fast, but be good at it,” he said. “You don’t want to sacrifice quality while you’re doing it fast. This is my first trip as an optometry technician. “I feel like this gives me a different skill set that I didn’t have firsthand before.”
Working with a smaller team, different equipment and in an unfamiliar clinical environment has also required De Los Santos to adapt.That experience translates directly to readiness, De Los Santos said, by requiring Airmen to operate outside the familiar environment and resources of their home clinics while working alongside their Dominican counterparts.
“We learn to work with limited resources. We learn to work with other medical professionals,” he said. “If we’re needing anything, if we’re missing anything, we get to be creative and still be able to deliver quality medical care.”
In less than a year, De Los Santos has gone from learning a new medical specialty to applying it in a high-volume environment alongside Dominican counterparts. The experience has required him to adapt quickly, communicate across two medical teams and build confidence in a career field he is still learning.
Amistad 2026 brings U.S. and Dominican medical professionals together through health security cooperation, providing opportunities to exchange knowledge, strengthen relationships and build readiness while working side-by-side.
For De Los Santos, those professional lessons unfolded in the same country where his own story began. For Rivera, seeing a Dominican return home as a U.S. Airman and serve alongside Dominican medical professionals was a source of pride.
“I’m certain he has the ability to give even more than he already does,” Rivera said.
But after two weeks working together, Rivera said what De Los Santos leaves behind at Morillo King is more personal than professional.
“He leaves a great friend here,” Rivera said. “And I’m sure the next visit will be mine to California.”