AAFP Honors FPs Who Persevered After Hurricane Katrina

"Those of us who don't live there have not gotten the full story of the impact of this event. It's much bigger than we can ever really conceive."

With those words, AAFP President Larry Fields, M.D., of Ashland, Ky., described his impression of New Orleans one year after Hurricane Katrina.

Fields visited the city Aug. 29 to distribute more than $18,600 in funds from the President's Challenge: Physicians' Disaster Assistance Program. He had established the fund during the 2005 Scientific Assembly to raise money to help family physicians, family medicine residents and residency programs, and family medicine academic departments affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Honored for their perseverance in providing health care despite the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina were current or former New Orleans FPs Robert Kenny, M.D.; Bryan Bertucci, M.D.; Alix Bouchette, M.D.; Cuong Le, M.D.; Bong Mui, M.D.; William Ross, M.D.; Renee Singleton, M.D.; and Ravi Vadlamudi, M.D. The President's Challenge Fund also distributed funds to the Mississippi Academy of Family Physicians for assistance to MAFP members.

The long-term impact of the storms became clear as Gerald Keller, M.D., past president of the AAFP Foundation, which coordinates the assistance program, escorted Fields and Sandra Panther, C.F.R.E., executive director of the foundation, through the city.

"People say the hurricane pointed out the weakness in our health care system," said Fields. "But there's not a health care system in the world that could have survived the extent of damage in this disaster."

Family physicians across the Gulf Coast are grappling with the remnants of hospital and pharmacy services. In New Orleans, six of the city's nine hospitals remain closed. Federal assistance provides recovery support only to nonprofit health facilities, leaving private-practice physicians who had had privileges at for-profit hospitals bereft, said Fields. Residents await a return of basic services before they move back to the city, while large employers await a return of customers before they will reopen and hire staff. Significant numbers of patients who remained in the city have no jobs or insurance and no way to pay for care or medications. Pharmaceutical patient assistance programs have not met the need, and physicians struggle to provide medications through their drug closet supplies.

The family physicians who cared for patients during the hurricane and who stayed the course after the storm demonstrate the essence of family medicine, according to Fields.

"These doctors are true family physicians," he said. "They are committed to taking care of the people. They're not going to quit."

That commitment comes in the face of a daunting challenge, because "the damage is everywhere," he continued. "It is hard to describe row upon row upon row of houses, all of which have an 'X' on them -- with one quadrant for the federal agency that inspected the house, one with the date of inspection, another with the number of dead found inside and the fourth for the number of dead animals inside. You can stand there and look down a commercial highway, and it looks normal. You see all the signs, but you drive by and all the buildings are destroyed on the inside. They haven't fallen down, but most are shells of buildings standing there with nothing in them."

The ripple effect of damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina will continue to be felt for years, and Gulf Coast family physicians will continue to need help from their peers, according to Fields.

Academy members can continue to donate to the Physicians' Disaster Assistance Program through the AAFP Foundation.