West Point graduate Melinda Morton recalls precisely
the genesis moment of the Crisis Health
Initiative, a project she helped found last year that is
making a positive impact in a country torn apart
by war.
The moment came at a March 22, 2007, symposium titled
Iraq: Rebuilding a Nation's Health, co-hosted by the U.S.
Institute of Peace and the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's
Task Force on Public Health and Conflict. Morton had just
been accepted at the Bloomberg School as a
Sommer Scholar.
The symposium, intended to raise awareness of the
deteriorating medical situation and health
care crisis in Iraq, brought together several public health
stalwarts, military officials, dignitaries and
those from the medical establishment. At one point in the
event, the dean of the University of
Baghdad's School of Medicine, Sarmad S. Khunda, spoke up
via a conference call from Baghdad.
Khunda described in poignant terms the hardships that
medical care providers in Iraq were
facing. He detailed how insurgents were targeting
physicians and how difficult it was for medical
students to even come to school. The horrific violence
drove many of the nation's doctors out of the
country.
"He said that the physicians who remained were in dire
straits, and that the problems were
mounting," said Morton, a former military police officer
with the U.S. Army who had received a
medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and was,
at the time, a research assistant with the
Office of the Secretary of Defense for health affairs.
Khunda implored the audience for help, specifically
asking the Johns Hopkins community for any
assistance it could provide to the Iraqi health care
system.
Morton heard the call. Allen Andrews, a fellow student
at the School of Public Health, soon
joined her.
In early 2008, Andrews and four other Bloomberg School
students traveled to the Middle East
to conduct a monthlong assessment of the health care needs
of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
refugees living in Syria and Jordan. What he found was
chilling, he said, and he was determined to do
more.
When Andrews returned, he and Morton conceived the
Crisis Health Initiative, a coalition of
students and faculty who want to contribute to the health
and stability of Iraq and other regions
affected by conflict and crisis.
Andrews said that he and Morton share a passion for
Iraq and its people.
"We have both seen firsthand the overwhelming health
care needs in that country," Andrews
said.
The initiative's first program is Iraq HOPE, an effort
to rebuild the country's medical and public
health system through educational initiatives. The program
was funded by the school's Center for
Refugee and Disaster Response and later received
additional financial support from the Dean's Office
to help pay tuition for visiting scholars.
Morton, who graduated from the Bloomberg School in
2008 and is now a resident in the School
of Medicine's
Department of Emergency Medicine, said that the public
health problems in Iraq are
numerous and massive. To date, major issues exist with
clean water, sanitation facilities, food safety
and immunizations. Since the war began, Iraq has witnessed
major increases in incidents of
communicable, preventable and surgical diseases. To
compound matters, many hospitals and health
centers have been looted.
The maternal mortality rate, a key public health
indicator, was one of the worst in the world at
the start of the war. Morton said that and other key public
health indicators have shown recent signs
of improvement, but not enough.
"Because of the sheer scale of the problems, we feel
the best way to approach the situation is
to train scholars in public health, particularly due to the
lack of traditional public health training in
Iraq," she said. "We want to help these scholars identify
the most important aspects to attack out of
this array of problems. It's all about developing public
health priorities."
This past summer, the Crisis Health Initiative hosted
two Iraqi physicians who enrolled in an
intensive program at the Bloomberg School. They took course
work in epidemiology, biostatistics,
immunology, health policy, management and health
emergencies in large populations.
Soon, two more Iraqi scholars will travel to the
United States, this time to attend the
University of California, Berkeley's School of Public
Health and participate in activities at the
University of California, San Francisco's School of
Medicine.
To identify the initial scholars, the Crisis Health
Initiative sent out notices to all of Iraq's 21
medical schools. The International Medical Corps and the
Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education screened
the applicants and sent Morton and Andrews a list of the
dozen most qualified candidates. The two
then reviewed all the resumes and essays and picked from
this group.
Andrews said that they wanted to find medical school
faculty who were connected to the
nation's Ministry of Health and willing to return to Iraq
after training and be a leader in public health.
"For example, maybe they trained here in research
methods and want to go back and establish
an institute in this field," he said. "We are looking for
visionaries."
The education the first two scholars received has
already made an impact. One of the Iraqi
doctors is working with the International Medical Corps to
establish a public health program, and the
other is establishing epidemiology and biostatistics
centers at his university.
In the near future, the Crisis Health Initiative wants
to help develop a telemedicine program
and physician consultant system to assist Iraqi physicians,
who are particularly lacking in specialty
care skills. Morton and Andrews also want to help Iraqi
doctors have access to online "grand rounds"
that are regularly held by Johns Hopkins departments.
Since the organization's founding, Morton has made a
trip to Iraq to meet with the physicians in
the program, conduct surveys and assist in teaching an
emergency medicine course to other physicians
in Baghdad.
Morton said the initiative will focus on Iraq for the
next several years and then branch out to
other countries. She and Andrews have already identified
Afghanistan as a logical next destination.
"We plan to make this a wider effort," she said. "I
think we are already having a positive impact
in some small way. We are engaging U.S. universities and
helping raise awareness to the need for public
health development in countries like Iraq. The need is
great."
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