Kattus, Albert A.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 32 | Number 1 Article 9February 1965A Talk With a Free Lance Mission Doctor in Chile...Albert A. KattusFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationKattus, Albert A. (1965) "A Talk With a Free Lance Mission Doctor in Chile ...," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 32 : No. 1 , Article 9.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol32/iss1/9A Talk With a Free LanceMission Doctor in C _ileALBERT A. KATTVS, M.D.When the Catholic Physicians' Guildof Los �ngeles voted to undertake the f?undatton and support of the Mis­s10n Doctors' �ssociation in 1959 italso mad� the wise decision to link thiseffort with the L�y Mission Helpers, then _under the direction of the late Monsignor Anthony Brouwers. The Lay �iss�on Helpers was a flourishingorganization sending teams of volu -teeJ lay peo�le of varying occupatio::S an skills mto the Mission fields -;vhe�e they . could devote their talents £°11 t e servJCe of their less fortunate e o:V men and to the Lord. One of in Santiago; visiteclthere; then, made th.�ble train ride soutL10 the company of tulty members from 1 versity. he Universities ong uncomfort­) Puerto Montt ce Chilean fac. Catholic Uni-The train ride, wi shared discom­fort and the metho ' e used to al­�eviate ?ur sufferings soon made the mternational teachin team six firmfriends. The diner w�. handy and thefood delicious, urn:- estionably en­hbf ced by the superb . :al wines avail­a e on the train in ; eat abundance. fur English-speakin� Chilean col-the furn policies of LMH f 1 d b M ormu ate y onsignor Brouwers was that each ea_gues were accom pf ,hed wine con­no_isseurs and they sa . to it that ourrams _were minimized o 1 the trip. They vol�nteer must undergo a one ear fenod of _preparation and trainin/ be-t or_e . leavmg for the missions The �ammg c�n.sisted of language i�struc-ook i� upon themseh·. , to see to oureducation in Chilean af airs and as we prowessed southward through lush a�ncu�tural districts, ,\ndean moun· tion, . familiarization with the eo­graphIC and climatic conditions as !euas the customs and traits of the eo 1 of the destination country and P b P e 11 . . . , a ove ; ' da s_trong spmtual orientation as oun ation for the _labors ahead. The measure of 1· ust h . d · · ow wise a . ec1SJon the Guild had made . 1· k m th M. · 10 10 -ff . e ission Doctors with . the La Miss10n Helpers became 1 y f very c ear to me a ew mo?-ths ago through a chanceencoun�er with a free lance mission doctor m the city of Valdivia Ch ·1 Iwas traveling with two coll ' i e. d. eagues on � me ical P?stgraduate teaching tourmh a cooperative endeavor between our sc ool, UCLA, and the two med· 1sch�ols of Santiago, Chile: the J�f­ver�ity . of Chile, and the CatholicUniversity of Chile Val·d· . th . d . ivia was the . ir stop on the tour. We had landed 18 . tam vistas, volcano an, lake districts we �ere informed ;;.;;.out the geo'. W�PhJC, agricultural, economic and po­litical problems besettin; their country.He�e, then, were thr;e U.S. d octorsyave�mg through the 1,eart of Chile; earnmg about the country from threekeenly perceptive Chilean doctors whohad. already become the American doc­t?rs fast friends-international rela·��ons at _the!r best: a group of peoplemmunicatmg freely in terms that allcould understand in a relaxed atmo· s h . , P ere, with no axes to grind. Beforewe reached Puerto Montt we had knowledge of some of the b�sic funda­mentals of Chile's problems. Looming above all other matters ofc_oncern at that moment was the poli· tical campaign being waged betw een LINACRE QUARTERLY Eduardo Frei, reform-minded Christian Democrat, (whose policies were said to have been formulated from the Papal Encyclicals) and Salvador Allende, avowed Marxist. Chile, the staid, old, 1100-violent, non-militaristic citadel of Latin American democracy was stand­ing face to face with the dismaying prospect that a Castro-type govern­ment might be elected to power by a free vote of the people. That seemed unthinkable for long-stable Chile, but, indeed, entirely possible in the view of our traveling companions. How could it be possible ? Because of the poor, the poor people of Chile, indeed the omnipresent poor all over South America. These people are no longer "part of the landscape," taken for granted as part of life. In this country, they have become - voters, a potent force. Though apprehensive, our Chilean friends did not really think that Al­lende could be elected because the country was making giant stride_s toward _solving difficult social prob­lems. without resorting to a ,Marxist solution. One of the major problemsthe housing of the vast numbers ofpoor, was well on its way to solution.The housing program of Chile was in­deed impressive. Everywhere one seeshuge housing developments, manycompleted, some under construction.These, we were informed, are builtunder a unified cooperative financialplan, which involves minimal cost tothe government, and permits longterm, low interest-rate financing thus bringing decent housing within 'reachof most wage earners. It was just sucha housing development in Valdivia� brought Dr. Don Strobe, his wife,1, and their four children from Ohioto Chile.* ---1:' nbmes of the doctor and his family c vbc een changed to save them from m arrassmcnt. F!atUAR.Y, 1965 We had driven from Puerto Montt to Valdivia, and I first encountered Don at the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Valdivia. This hospital, of pre, fabricated design, was rushed down there by the U.S. government after the great earthquake of 1960, when virtually all hospital beds in the. city were destroyed. It was now serving as the Social Security Hospital for the wage earners and the poor of the city, and it was painfully overcrowded to the point of having 2 children in most of the pediatric beds. Don was working part time on the Pediatric service, and he faithfully attended all our rounds, lectures and conferences. I didn't have much time to talk to him around the hospital, but in a brief chat I found out that he was not in the Peace Corps, nor in PAVLA, nor with the YMCA, but that a group of "Padres" had somehow persuaded him to come. I met Don and his charming wife, Vi, at Mass that Sunday in the tempo­rary cathedral of Valdivia, which is a corrugated iron garage-like structure standing beside the ruins of the de­stroyed church. We agreed that I would visit their home that night after returning from the boat ride on the river that the Kennedy Hospital doc­tors had arranged for the visiting "gringos." It was extremely dark and was pour­ing rain when Don picked me up at the Hotel in a taxi. He has no car of his own. As we drove the five miles out to the edge of town he told me how he had happened to come to Valdivia. He had been working in a general practice partnership with two other physicians in his home town in Ohio when discussions ensued with the community of priests operating the local college, Don's alma mater. They told him how a group of their men had gone to Valdivia, Chile, to help ease the shortage of priests there, and to assist in the rebuilding after the earth-19 quake of 1960. They had set up a church in one of the vast new housing projects that was sheltering 40,000 poor people on the outskirts of the city. Now that these 40,000 souls had spiritual guidance the next problem was to obtain medical care; none was at hand, and indeed, most were too poor to afford the bus fare to the hos­pital in town .. The priests were looking for a doctor to go to Chile to help these people, and they wanted to know if Don would be willing to undertake the task, but he would make no de­cision without consulting his wife. item of furniture in old folding lawn cJ seat. There were no anywhere. I tried to of a shock it must h inhabitants of a corr suburbia to be thn standard housing creature comforts , much for granted. Vi had gone to Sf tain a piece of beef and she had sliced it While we ate and ha red wine, Don and how they had reache events had developec Don and Vi had thought deeply about the problem, and they discussed it thoroughly. The three man partner­ship was going well. They were mak­ing a comfortable living. They had a nice home, and had managed to put aside some savings. Both of them had begun to feel that the Lord had been unusually good to them, and it was time to give something of themselves in return. The plea of the "Padres" for medical help at their mission in Chile appeared to be a call that could not be refused. They agreed to go. After they had d( the plea of the prie vestigated some of agencies in order to port for their ventur: tacted the Mission ; tion, among others. nine months to a yea• required before leav; Don and Vi, in their ; going, decided not to take off on their own iis room was an r with a canv� 1gs or carpeting 1gine h ow much c been for these rtable American into this su� Jid of all the ch we take so ial pains to o� ir the occasion, o steaks for us. bottle of good told me about there and how fter 6 months. ded to answer , they had in­e lay mission rain some sup­They had con-1etors Associa­. ecause of the 'raining period � the country, .patience to get ff iliate; but to As we drove through the rain Don pointed out the housing project or pabellon that was his clinic. All I could see was a massive cluster of lights reflected in the wet night. Soon we arrived at the house where Don and his family lived. They were rent­ing the back few rooms of a large old frame house that had long since fallen into decay. The interior fulfilled the gloomy prediction of the exterior. Bare electric light bulbs illuminated three starkly utilitarian rooms on the first floor and three bedrooms above. There was a dining room containing a plain wooden table with two wooden benches. The living room had to serve mainly as a play room for the three little boys and a girl because the in­cessant rain kept them indoors so much of the time. The most luxurious 20 They traveled at . 1eir own ex­pense and were now •ving on their savings and on the s11 11 income that the partnership was wi iing to prov_ide during Don · s absence from practJCe. There was also hope tj, tt he might re· ceive some small reim,. 1rsement from the Chilean Social Secuc,ty officials for his part time work al the Kennedy Hospital, but nothing 1,J.d been forth­coming. They had agrcl'd to come for 2 years, but now, after ,> months, they were disconsolate aLJ discouraged about the undertaking. "I don't know if I'll be able to stay for 2 years,'' was Don's comment. Vi said, "I wish now that we had taken the training in the Mission Doctors program. We 'd have been much better prepared to face things here,. both from a spiritual and practical pomt of LINACRE QUARTERLY us lonely . " So these courageo . ' ftff, 1 . ke of their frustra­-o peop e spo . h e ,� th stranger from their om.-IIOIIS to � 1 t'n the mere reo-land, seeking so ace . lltion of the many disappomtm�tl and foreseen prob lems t�at_ a �w dampened their m1ss10nary ardor b · Vi, found the language a�ner d formidable problem not . o?ly 1:r i� . shopping and bus ndmg, �ings with service and sales. people there was difficulty, and sooal con­lJclS which could make life more pleasant were limited. Then, too, s_h� felt that this barrie r  interfered w�t her capacity to help her �usband, r1th many of the socio-medical proJ ems that beset him. Her major lam�nt was for their lack of spiritual formatt0n t��t would have helped them tap the spm­tual wel lsprings which are many times the missionary's greatest resource. Don tried to sum up the reas?; ��� his discouragement when he sat just doesn't seem like we're accom­plishing anything." This remark was weighted with his sense of the eno�­mity of the medica l problems and t . e futility of trying to deal "7'i�h them_ 1� terms of modern scient1f1C med1ca act. "What do you do when four pr ICC. out of a family of 10 children come m with profound diarrhea? There's no lab for culturing stools and we pro�­ably wouldn't have the proper anti­biotics to give even if we knew the organism. What do you do when t�e hospita l pediatric wards have two chil­dren in every bed? How do you face1t day after day when yo�. can't see any hope of improvement? It seemed to Don that one of themost frustrating ironies was that h� "."as not dea ling with a backward m 1ss_1o_n devoted to primitive savages. V:a�d1v_ia is one of the most pleasant cities m the high ly civilized country of Chile where political upheaval, violent re�o­lution, and governmenta l oppression FEBRUARY, 1965 . where the traditions of are unknownd d democratic gov­personal free om an been taken forernment have long · ·1·zed that untry so ov1 I granted ; a . co_ Se tember election it u ltimately, mh1tsf Christian Democracy chose the p_at o h should a North over �arx�s���n� such frustrations American oc . h"s profession when he tries to practice _ I • on . this land? Because Chile, .m c�mm m_ most of Latin Amenca, ts eco­w1th. 11 oor technologically under-��:��ap!ci �nd �till struggling_ t� thro� ff the remains of a feudah_st!C agr!­o The national mcome is cultural system. d t es must be low and the expen I ur ment d . those areas of develop ma e m · th that wi ll lead to the economic growt of the nation. Education, transpor a­tion. food, fertil1ze�s �nd tractors d�mi h' her pnonty than me ica mand a ig It . s that modern scien-care The resu t d 1 b 'f' . edicine with its advan�e a o-t1 ic m d 1 . 1 techmques can r t r and ra to og1ca .a o y ffered in one or two lar_ge ��f �s.bio �on strugg led doing frontt_er d. . in a country known for its ��il[���fon. He fel� that he �o���t�t�� <toad the depnvattons muc . b h he were working in the Af ncan us et but it "sure was tough to ha�e . t�. g I on so little here in Vald1v1a. a ong 't time in that short eve-. Thefre ::�o get the whole story in nmg or from my all its _details. I c�m�_a;;:obe with a visit with Don a� d�iratton for theprofound sense o . a lied these young spirit�a l  zeal t�at :��eir comfortab le Amencans to ea drastically lower lives, to cha�g� to t work in the face standard of l1vmg, ho 1 of God and dds for t e ove of great o But this encounter their fe llolwd ;:enharsh realities of the a lso revea e d the of discouragement an d;E�7!ms of mora le that soo?. dampen P 1 f the missionary spmt. the zea .o Anthony Brouwers was Mons1gnorf those harsh realities and well aware bol d designed a pro-morale pro ems an 21 22 gram s? lay m1ss10ners might bettercope with them. Spiritual formation was the key to his program, but he�1d not neglect the practical. But that1s .another story-that story of the valiant and wise priest who gave his�1fe harness_ing the power of the laitym the servICe of his Lord. Suffice itto say I was most sion Doctors Assoc� geles had linked t Monsignor Brouwc Helper program. A organization such a, might well have sol. Strobe's problems. ::I that the Mis­on of Los An. tr efforts with Lay Mission ong supporting 'fission Doctors -l most of DonCATHOLIC INTER-AMERICAN COOPERATION PRO ,{AM The National Federation was re d h ence of the C.l.C.O.P. (Cath 1. I present� at t e sec�nd ar · ual Confer­at the Edgewater Be h H � jc C�er-Amencan Cooperation P,, gram) h_eld Mission Committee u�der ti e 'bl i�a�o, Ill., .January 27-29. , �e Medical of Detroit has made mo e �la e c airmanship of Joseph E. , rady, M.D. personnel and aid to th r clan l moderate advances in supp; •ng medical erend Louis M C I e me ica . misswns, especially in Gu, • mala. Rev­hel fol a d ... o orrnese, org_anrzrng secretary of C.I.C.O.!'., was most doJors ton m:::c��'.j5 in arran�r�g a session that_ enabled o·,r American Latin Amencan Bisho�!cui�r w��m��� Latrn American colleap1ts and key America. Interested doctors should contaftpose of medrcal 81d to Latin Rever_end Louis M. Colon nese CICOP 1300 South Wabash Ave. Chicago, Illinois 60605 or Joseph E. Grady, ;\i.0. 20902 Morass Ro:,.,! Detroit 36, Michig�n 1INACRE QUARTERLY Dear Dick:· Received your missive today. Sorry J haven't been more punctual with my writing. In my letter addressed to Dr. Charles Westerbeck last month, I said I would try to get out a letter a month. With a secretary for a wife, it seems a shame we do not have a type­writer available. We have been keep­ing our eyes open for a reasonable second-hand one, but so far no luck. I will try to write legibly. Well, Msgr. Laubacher was here last week. He had a chance to see the hospital, meet the s.isters and fathers and talk with us. I explained the situ­ation here to him, viz., that we are a poor mission with very little income from the people and that we rely al­most entirely on what we receive from_. the sisters in Luxembourg, Mission Doctors Association, and the N.Y. Medical Mission Board. The sisters and I alternate sending and paying for supplies we need from the medical supply house in Blantyre. I find if we budget carefully here at home, I can save enough to purchase such things as intravenous fluids, anti­biotics, burn ointments, lab chemicals, x-ray film, serums, etc. I bought agrafting knife and extra blades in Salisbury.We are very busy at the hospital. We are averaging about 150 in-pa­tients now and handling about 6000a_ �nth in our out-patient clinic. De­liveries run b:tween 100 and 120 a �nth. We are understaffed, with one SJS!er covering men's, women's and'!mdren's wards 24 hours a day, onesister arid two midwives covering ma­ternity, and one sister with four Afri­can helpers (girls with eighth . gradeFEBtUAR. Y, 196 5education and no medical back­ground) . One sister works the lab and x-ray with two African helpers andthe remaining sister works with me. Ispend my time doing a little of every­thing. I'm doing more and m?re sur­gery, usually only necessary thing� be­cause it takes too much of my time:hysterectomy, (.section, s!rangula�edor incarcerated hernias, skin graftingfor burn cases, osteotomies for osteo­myelitis, excision of _tumors? biopsies,amputations, etc. I will continue to do more and more with time. I cannot refer many surgical cases to Dr. Sorensen because communications are bad, especially at night, and trans­portation will be bad with the ons:t of the rainy season; many of the patients cannot be transported. I have excellent texts; I work slowly and my results seem to be excel�ent. One sister is a very good anesthes10lo­gist and another has considerable op­erating room experience. I often work . by flashlight or just by daylight. I do a great deal with regional blocks, am­putations, etc. Medicine ( i.e. medical cases) takes up the greater part of my tim�. I think we have a little of everythrng here and some things I can't find in th_ebooks; tetanus ( two this week) , pen· tonitus ( two at present), the w�ole gamut of tropical entities, TB, JUSt had an outbreak of smallpox two days ago, tremendous abscesses; _a� presenthave three cases of mening1t1s, p!]-eu­monias literally by the dozens, . sev­eral lung abscesses, several rheumatic fevers, pulmonary edemas, etc. We all work hard, but when tre­mendous need is appreciated, it seems we do all too little! These poor souls really need help; our bad pati�nts usually come in from as far as fifty 23 

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A Talk With a Free Lance Mission Doctor in Chile ...

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