Physicians With Heart Celebrates 15 Years With Humanitarian Aid to Kyrgyzstan

Physicians With Heart, a collaborative effort of the AAFP, AAFP Foundation and Heart to Heart International, celebrates its 15th year in 2008 with a medical humanitarian project to Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, Oct. 16-26.

Project volunteers will help deliver millions of dollars of needed medical aid donated by U.S. companies. In addition, they'll encourage and support AAFP members who have been living and working in Kyrgyzstan for several years, establishing family medicine in that country.

Those members have worked with the Kyrgyz medical community to develop family medicine in a very impressive and sustainable fashion, says Daniel Ostergaard, M.D., AAFP’s vice president for professional activities. "This commitment by a small group of our members is unprecedented in the former Soviet Union."

This will be the third Physicians With Heart trip to Kyrgyzstan since 1996. The landlocked nation borders Kazakhstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Since its independence from the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has faced economic hardship and has struggled to provide health care for its citizens, says Ostergaard.

"The Kyrgyz Ministry of Health has recognized the benefits family medicine brings to the nation's people, and the ministry, the U.S. Embassy and local non-governmental organizations are excited to have Physicians With Heart return," he says. "During the project, we'll support Kyrgyz efforts by sponsoring family medicine symposia and a 'train-the-trainer' course in Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics, or ALSO. In addition, project volunteers will participate in activities that benefit facilities for hearing-impaired and deaf children, orphans, and other vulnerable children."

Physicians With Heart has been providing support to former Soviet republics since 1993. It also made a trip to Vietnam in 2001.

More information on the 2008 project, including an application form for the mission, is available online. If you have questions, e-mail them to Rebecca Janssen, a senior program coordinator at the AAFP.