Introduction

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Hi! I’m Nancy, from Seattle, Washington, the state on the west side of the United States (not Washington, DC, the US capital on the east coast). I just arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan today to start a 12-week adventure and wanted to share something about it with you.

I am a Family Physician who quit practice after 21 years at a migrant and community health center in eastern Washington State to go back to school. I am getting a Master’s in Public Administration at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle. The summer’s adventure was arranged through a program at the school, the Population Leadership Program (PLP) funded by the Gates and Packard Foundations. Nayat Karim, who works for the Family Planning Association of Pakistan, was a fellow in the PLP last year. In 2005, Karim returned to his homelands in Gilgit, in the Northern Areas of Pakistan in the Himalayas, on the Silk Road from Islamabad to China (and between the international hot spots in Kashmir on the Pakistani-India border to the east and the Northwest Frontier Territories on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the west.) In Gilgit, there is a 20-bed, state-of-the-art hospital built in 2003 by the German government. There are 2 Pakistani physicians and a total of 34 staff, but no hospital administrator. Karim developed a job description for the intern that includes: 1. Set up the hospital administration, 2. Train the hospital staff (that’s all the more detailed it was!), 3. Evaluate the Hospital Management Information System and if I think they need a new system, recommend a couple of different options (like I know something about that - but at least I have some ideas where to start asking - plan to hear from me soon, all of you who are potential resources), 4. Set up a quality assurance program, and, last but not least, 5. Help solidify the connections between the hospital and the 9 remote mountain village health centers that are culturally and linguistically distinct from each other. 12 weeks? No problem!

More to follow …… N

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Comments

[George Foote]

Messages just received
Hi Nancy, It is August 10th and I just got your first three blog entries, Introduction, First Leg of Journey and More random thoughts. Since you wrote these June 13th, perhaps they were out there somewhere with your luggage. I hope your luggage has been found as well. I was beginning to wonder if you made it all right. I tried calling Tafara, but did not get an answer or response from the message left.