 Alumni
Interviews:
Stanley Mills, M.D.
"We managed to help a lot of people... Many
came in very sick, but left walking and smiling."
Dr. Stanley Mills and his wife, Phyllis, arrived in Afghanistan
via a United Nations flight, circling from the sky to avoid any
hostile fire. It was August 2002, and although major fighting was
over, the airspace over Mazar-e Sharif remained unsecured. The
descent reflected the tenuous yet hopeful conditions Mills would
find on the war-scarred ground.
The North Carolina surgeon retired in 1998, and since has stepped
up his work at international mission hospitals run by Christian
organizations like Samaritan's Purse, which opened a 20-bed
facility in the Afghani city of Kholm. "The hospital isn't
very big, but the level of care we provided was better than many
government clinics," Mills said. "Most of the people
don't have any medical care."
Mills' work also has taken him on one to three month journeys
into Kenya, Ecuador and Papua New Guinea. Conditions in Afghanistan
were among the worst he has encountered, but Afghani enthusiasm
and ingenuity impressed him.
"
I found the people unusually industrious. You got the feeling they
were so glad to be out from under the Taliban and struggling to
get back on their feet," he said, referring to the authoritarian
regime that controlled much of Afghanistan before the United States
invasion in late 2001.
Remnants of the recent war and its predecessors marked the land. "You'd
see old Russian tanks and military equipment," Mills recalled. "People
were using metal from these tanks to make shovels, axes and other
items." Landmines remained a threatening presence, and Mills
treated a father and son who happened onto a mine while collecting
camel dung for fuel.
In Kholm, Mills became accustomed to oppressive temperatures,
cloudless skies and a landscape parched by a seven-year drought.
Hospital
conditions were austere, and volunteers and staff - both
Western and Afghani - learned to make due with whatever supplies,
laboratory services and personnel might be available.
The city around them still lacked electricity and reliable water,
but at least
the shooting had stopped. "We were never really aware of any danger, except
that we had guards around all the time," Mills said. In addition to these
local forces, U.S. troops would visit the facility periodically, heavily armed
and alert.
Reminders of conflict also appeared in old war injuries treated
at the clinic. Most patients, however, exhibited routine complaints
made worse by poor living
conditions. The toll seemed to fall hardest on women, for whom treatment carried
restrictions even after the Taliban.
"
It is difficult for a male doctor to examine a female patient," Mills said. "I
did operate on some women, but I'm not sure how male Afghani doctors manage
to deliver babies. I don't think they do."
Phyllis Mills cooked for hospital staff while her husband was
in clinic, working with two Afghani boys who spoke little English.
Interpreters were
on hand for
the physicians, but translation often complicated care.
Mills said the interpreters, especially, were interested in what
brought the Westerners to Kholm, raising the sensitive matter of
religion. Though
Samaritan's
Purse urges caution and sensitivity among volunteers, it professes its religious
identity and motivation.
"
One of the questions we often hear is should we be evangelizing people? Aren't
we disrupting their culture? From what I've seen, the Christian message
helps them," Mills said of his experience abroad, although noting that here
again, the Middle East trip differed from his previous journeys. "You have
to be very careful of what you say, because it can be a matter of life and death," he
added.
Mills turned 70 while in Papua New Guinea earlier this year and
has no overseas trips on the calendar now. The travel can be taxing,
the
work
challenging,
but the rewards are compelling. "We managed to help a lot of people," he
said, summing up his month in Afghanistan. "Many came in very sick, but
left walking and smiling."
 Support our Faculty, Staff, and Students
|
view
read
alumni interviews
view
photo albums
Back
to Alumni Interviews Page