The past few days of my internship have placed me in the offices of Dr. Aso Faeq. As a partner to PLC and an invaluable member of this Coalition, Dr. Aso is the only pediatric cardiologist serving a large area of Iraq, and the only pediatric cardiologist with interventional training in an even greater portion of the country. Given his position, Dr. Aso would already have an extensive patient list- but add to that the high incidence of congenital heart disease in Iraq, and it is not surprising that every time we have visited him there has been a waiting room overflowing with mothers and fathers holding and comforting their sick kids, whispering assurance and love into their ears.
These visits are heartbreaking, humbling, challenging and encouraging.
It is heartbreaking to realize how rampant CHD is in Iraq. The entire time Dr. Aso met with me and other interns he was seeing patient after patient, diagnosing ASD, TGA, Tetrology of Fallot, and other congenital heart defects one after another. It is heartbreaking to know that the best course Dr. Aso can pursue is often a procedure performed to extend a kid’s life a few years so that they can wait for an improbable surgery down the line.
It is humbling to see how Dr. Aso makes these diagnoses using very limited, mostly donated equipment in a public hospital with little institutional support. It is humbling to see him treat more patients in a day than many doctors do in a week, without any extra compensation, all the while with joy and a smile on his face.
It is challenging, as a student pursuing a career in medicine, to see such stark disparities in healthcare between western countries and the region where much of “western” medicine originated. It is challenging to hear this brilliant doctor humbly state that all he wants is the opportunity for more, better training so he can go further in treating his patients. (As an Iraqi, Dr. Aso was recently denied a visa to attend a training meeting of the Association for European Pediatric Cardiology, of which he is a member.)
And although I may leave Dr. Aso’s office heartbroken or humbled or challenged (or all three), I always leave his office encouraged as well. It is encouraging to know that, through his partnership with PLC, Dr. Aso can send families from his office to ours so that they may have a chance at surgery. It is encouraging to realize that even though Dr. Aso may be denied visas to travel and get more advanced training, we can bring the training to him and other local doctors with Remedy Missions. Most of all, it is encouraging to know that “long-term, local solutions” isn’t just a slogan. Long-term, local solutions are people like Dr. Aso.
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