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Interview
by Michelle Paolucci Kathy LeFevre, a nurse practitioner at NorthBay Healthcare Medical Group in Fairfield, Calif., and an ER nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, recently returned from her fifth mission with Doctors Without Borders. Overseeing the administration of several therapeutic feeding centers in Malange, Angola, LeFevre led a team of medical volunteers in the provision and distribution of food to malnourished civilians. Civil strife between government military forces and rebels has given rise to tens of thousands of internally displaced Angolans, most of whom have fled their rural homes and cultivated fields for the relative safety of the north-central city of Malange. LeFevre began working with Doctors Without Borders in 1992 as a volunteer at an intensive pediatric feeding center in Bangladesh. She received her family nurse practitioner certificate from Albany Medical College in 1980, and a master’s of public health in epidemiology and health services from Boston University School of Public Health in 1990. Q: The focus of your work has been with the feeding centers. What is a therapeutic feeding center? A: There are two types of feeding programs for children and adults. In the first, an intense feeding program, many children stay 24 hours a day. Their diet consists of high-energy milk and porridge. With such an intense program, we will usually see results in five days. In the second type of feeding center, the supplement-feeding program, the child will receive the same type of treatment, but will come in only once a week. Q: What was your mission in Angola like? What was it like working at the centers every day? A: We had eight feeding centers, with 100 to 150 civilians treated in each. I ran three of these centers. The centers were on the outskirts of the city of Malange, which had been bombed out. We worked six days a week, eight to 12 hours a day. We would head out for three camps every morning and return to our camp by dark for security reasons. In the evenings, we would have brainstorming meetings, where we would get updates and ideas from other nongovernmental organizations working in the same area. The evenings also were for doing paperwork—we kept stats on all of the centers. Q: Were you able to keep in contact with your family back in the States? A: Yes, we had e-mail access, which was really nice. Q: Is there any one moment from your missions that would define why you volunteer for Doctors Without Borders? A: One day, a displaced child wandered into our camp with a woman we assumed was his mother, but soon found out that she wasn’t, and that the boy, Canboua, had been recently orphaned. He was covered in sores and emaciated, so we took him into the feeding center and began to treat him. It was amazing how he improved in a few days. He was the sweetest little boy. Pretty soon, the staff adopted the boy. I imagine he is still at the center if one of the native medical staff hasn’t already adopted him. Q: What is a typical Doctors Without Borders team like? A: There are always physicians, nutritionists, physical therapists, and other medical professionals on a team. The makeup of a team on any given mission is usually half logistical [construction workers, builders, etc.] and half medical staff. Volunteer nurses are usually managers, supervisors and teachers to the medical staff native to the area. Nurses travel from camp to camp, teaching local nurses, and do not directly care for patients. Q: How could a medical professional interested in volunteering for Doctors Without Borders get involved? A: They could get in touch with the New York City office, and send their curriculum vitae. The New York office would then contact them for an interview. Where you would be placed would depend on your experience. Once you are a volunteer and are sent on a mission, everything is covered: food, shelter, etc., including a small stipend every month. |
