Life is an Adventure: Why am I in Afghanistan, anyway??

This is a really good question, posed by McV and many others.

For me, it all started in January of this year. I walked into our frozen section room to help out on a day when Dr. Art Mendoza was on frozen duty. As I walked into the middle of a conversation, he said “I bet Heather would go. Do you like to travel?” I replied’ “Sure, I love to travel. Can I take pictures there?” “ Absolutely.” “ Travel, pictures and time off….I’m in. By the way, where are you going?” “Afghanistan.”

At this point, he expected me to change my mind. He has been asking everyone else in the lab to come for years. He first visited Afghanistan in 2004, and this is his 6th trip. I said I might actually be seriously interested, and asked to know more about what he does over there.

During this trip, the major project is to set up a pathology laboratory in the city of Jalalabad, in Nangarhar province. The idea came about during his first trip here, when he was staying with a local surgeon. He met with many doctors at Nangarhar University during his stay, including the Chief “pathologist”. I put it in quotations because the doctor is not really a diagnostician. He teaches pathology but has never used a microscope to make a single diagnosis. Back in 2004, there were no pathology services available in the entire country. At this time, there are two labs in Kabul – one at the CURE International hospital* and one at a private lab which is not currently operational. Currently in Jalalabad, all biopsies are sent to Pakistan for processing. This is expensive and takes 2 to 3 weeks. The goal is to provide a local service, which will be cheaper & faster, and will eventually provide jobs in the community once the lab expands. It is also valuable to the local surgeons to be able to do frozen sections during their surgery, instead of waiting weeks to find out any diagnosis.

USAID, via DAI, provided a grant to purchase the equipment needed to run a routine lab, as well as perform frozen sections. This includes a cryostat, microtome, processor, embedding station, water bath and staining rack. The local hospital is to provide a pathologist and technician to be trained, both by us and in working labs.

So after hearing story, I did a little research about was really happening in Afghanistan. I’m very lucky to have a bunch of really smart friends who are interested in international relations. I talked to lots of people to get their opinions, and I was surprised to find that most of them were positive and supportive. I really expected people to tell me I was absolutely crazy, but they kept that to themselves.

Initially we were going to go in the spring of this year. However, the equipment was in the US and had to be shipped overseas first. Art knows from experience that shipping can be unreliable and take up to a month. So we waited to book our trip until the equipment was actually in Jalalabad, which ended up being the very end of May. We could have traveled in June or July, but the climate of Jalalabad is similar to Palm Springs. During the summer here, it is well over 100 degrees. All females must be covered except for the face – long sleeves, long pants and head scarf. Summer would be miserable and unproductive. So we planned our trip for the fall, and here we are.

*Recognizing the enormous need—and seizing on a tremendous opportunity—CURE International accepted an invitation from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to assume control of both a partially restored hospital and a nearby outpatient clinic in Kabul in January 2005. By the end of that first year, both facilities were fully operational and serving more than 8,000 patients each month. In addition to providing top quality care, the hospital also offers training programs for doctors and nurses to further elevate the level of care provided in the future. Programs include obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, orthopedic surgery, general surgery, plastic surgery and general practice.