As physician-in-chief at Kaiser Medical Center in South San Francisco, Woodside’s Dr. Michelle Caughey has seen many things pass through the hospital doors.
But nothing in her experience could have prepared Dr. Caughey for the two weeks she spent this January, working as a “lady doctor” in a field hospital in a mountainous region of rural Pakistan that was devastated by a 7.6 intensity earthquake on October 8, 2005.
Dr. Caughey will talk about and show photos of her experiences in Pakistan at the Woodside Library on Thursday, May 11, at 7 p.m. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library, the program is free and open to the public.
Dr. Caughey, who normally sees adult patients, treated more than 100 women and children a day in Pakistan, many of them for diseases no longer found in this country. She even delivered five babies, with the help of her translator/midwife.
Dr. Caughey, who is also the mother of four, had to organize the field hospital, a large tent in place only a month. Most supplies were still inside unopened, unmarked cardboard boxes. There was no running water.
The physician was convinced to visit Pakistan by her sister, Spee Braun, who works for Save the Children. The organization had just opened the field hospital and desperately needed a “lady doctor” to treat female patients, who may not be examined by male doctors. Dr. Caughey kept a journal during the trip.
The Pakistan adventure began with a drive from Islamabad to Banna Allai, high in the mountains. The 250-mile drive took all day on narrow, winding, poorly maintained cliff-hugging roads.
“At one point we were stopped in the road for 20 minutes while men righted a chicken van. They left the chickens to freeze,” Dr. Caughey wrote in her journal. “We slipped once and almost took out two boys, a man and their donkey.”
Not a structure appeared untouched by the earthquake. “Whole mountainsides were taken out, presumably with the people who lived there buried in the rubble and gone forever,” she noted.
Women in Islamic Pakistan are rigidly controlled. Dr. Caughey had to remain within the hospital compound and was to wear a head-covering shawl.
“The shawl and I never really figured one another out,” she wrote. “It wouldn’t stay on my head … so I wore my winter hat all the time, inside and out and used the shawl around my shoulders.”
Dr. Caughey and translator Saedda Shah, an Iranian who spoke the local dialect of Pashtu as well as Urdu, English and Persian, slept in a tent with lots of blankets.
Beyond medical care, the Pakistani’s lacked many basic needs, Dr. Caughey said. They bought 3,000 pairs of socks at the local markets (at a cost of $230) and gave them out to the patients.
“The joy in the kids’ and moms’ faces is unimaginable when they receive such a gift,” she wrote.
Towels and baby blankets had to be purchased for the births. Dr. Caughey fashioned out of surgical supplies both diapers and pads for the mothers’ bleeding.
Before she left, Dr. Caughey bought every orange to be found in the surrounding area, three crates, at a cost of about $5, to leave behind at the field hospital.
Early in her stay, heavy snow fell and when her planned visit was up, there was no way for Dr. Caughey to leave. The roads were closed by landslides and helicopters were unable to fly.
Unwilling to miss her flight home, and knowing that her husband and work were waiting for her, Dr. Caughey hiked down the mountain. Accompanied by a guide she made it to the bottom and then crossed the river on a contraption known as a “Flying Fox,” which Dr. Caughey described as “a steel cable with a little hanging basket attached.”
Once home, she wrote: “I feel I gained far more from the experience than I was able to give.”
Barbara Wood is a freelance writer, photographer and gardener from Woodside.
