Details of the Medical Mission

(Lynn)
My apologies to all sailors who do not cuss! We had a sunny day finally and took a long family hike after an hour of "home church" with our iPod player and a bible reading. The church we were planning on visiting started earlier than I thought so we missed it- but we had a blessed time just the six of us and the Holy Spirit. Remember, wherever two or more are gathered in His name, God promises to be there! Phillip and I rode down to Auckland and back yesterday (Saturday) with Pastor Miguel and his 9 year old son, Champ, to a men's prayer breakfast. It was a great time of fellowship with about 50 guys. Isaiah 46 was the topic- (read the chapter straight through and see what it says to you. ) After a great Sunday with the family I turned around and flew back to Auckland this evening in order to be at an 8am meeting at the large public hospital. Hence, the time and energy to make an extended blog entry because I am sitting by myself in a hotel in Auckland.

I would like to tell you more about the medical mission as it's shaping up and about my job. The most important thing (to me, at least) I'm doing at the moment is working, along with nurse Linda O'Grady, to establish an efficient and effective lung cancer service. I am the only full-time pulmonologist working for the Northland region presently. In Northland we have mostly visiting oncologists from Auckland, no thoracic surgeon, and no radiation oncology. One must go to Auckland for all these services. That's easy to say, but most of the patients have a very difficult time getting to Auckland. It looks close to Whangarei and Northland on a map but the roads are two-lane, hilly, and windy most of the way making travel slow. And lest anyone forget- they're usually wet with a fresh rain. That's just from Whangarei. Many of the Maori live in the Far North- 3-5 hours drive from Whangarei. And they have the highest smoking and lung cancer rates of all! So here's my goal/directive from the Australian-New Zealand cancer guidelines : have every new lung cancer patient begin their treatment within one month of being notified of the patient's abnormal chest x-ray.

Sounds deceptively easy. The four weeks pass quickly. In a socialized health care system you usually have to wait months for a CT scan because there aren't many scanners. (The radiologists have said they'll try to do my patients within 2 weeks.) Then you have to get O.R. time for the bronchoscopy, wait a week for a pathology report, and then make a formal presentation of the patient to the tumor board in Auckland for the patient to get accepted for therapy. Which brings me to my meeting in the morning. I am presenting 4 new lung cancer patients to the the conference in the morning and then touring the facilities here as well as a lung cancer clinic. These are only 4 of at least 15-20 cases of lung cancer I've seen over the past month. It is truly a crisis in Northland. Many of the other lung cancer patients I have simply given pain medicine and hospice support because they were too ill or unwilling to consider chemotherapyor radiation. Something I teach the nurses and training doctors about lung cancer is that we comfort always and cure occasionally. I have identified one surgically curable lung cancer thus far.

I am not discouraged, though. We will find the best care this system can generate and comfort alot of patients and family along the way. I had a very special day last week in the Far North (I fly about twice a month up to Kaitaia for clinic days). A very sweet and relatively young Maori patient had brought about 25 extended family members to meet with me and discuss her cancer. She had told me previously that she believed in the One True God (as opposed to the polytheism of her ancestors). We discussed the bad news, challenges to even getting to therapy-much less tolerating it- and what to expect in the next year. I asked her if she wanted prayer to which she responded emphatically, "Yes". We then welcomed God into that room with crying adult children and beautiful young mokopuna (grandchildren) surrounding this woman. May God, the great physician, bless her and help me to do my best to serve her and her family- not on my own strength and understanding- but with God's heart and power.
-Amen