Walking Together, Walking Far: How a U.S. and African Medical School Partnership Is Winning the Fight against HIV/AIDS

2. Birth of a Partnership

22 walking together, walking far 22 walking together, walking far 2 Birth of a Partnership In 1985, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a list of more than seventy organizations that provided health services internationally. Twenty-nine-year-old Bob Einterz , fresh from a stint as chief resident physician at Indianapolis ’s Wishard Hospital, and in his first year as a faculty member at Indiana University School of Medicine, sat down and typed letters to each organization, offering to serve as a volunteer doctor for a year. He received just one positive answer, from Minnesota International Health Volunteers. So Einterz signed up with the Minnesota group, who sent Einterz, his wife Lea Anne, and their two young boys to Croix Fer, Haiti, a dusty, desperately poor community just a few kilometers west of the border with the Dominican Republic. In Haiti, Einterz saw patients at a clinic every day, and every Tuesday he walked in the blistering heat to one of the remote villages to announce that he would be giving immunizations the next day. The following day, Einterz, a village health worker, and a nurse would repeat the same walk, carrying a cold pack of vaccines . Children and mothers would line up, usually outside the Birth of a Partnership 23 dilapidated village church, where Einterz would direct a makeshift clinic the rest of the day. Before one of the Tuesday announcement visits, Einterz was able to obtain a jeep from the Haitian Ministry of Health to drive up a rugged mountain road to that week’s temporary village clinic location. He invited Lea Anne to come along and bring their boys, Robbie, only two years old, and baby Zach, who was less than a year. On their way home, a sudden rainstorm turned the dirt road into a river of mud, and the jeep became hopelessly stuck. With no food or water, they had no choice but to walk down the mountain. Bob had to tie his sandals to his feet with twine to keep them from being sucked off in the mud, and Robbie was carried down the mountain on the back of a mule guided by Pierre, the husband of the chief clinic nurse. By the time they finally reached the bottom of the mountain, it was well after dark. During most of their year in Croix Fer, the Einterz family had no car, no electricity, and no running water. After putting the boys to bed in their tin-roofed home with no glass or screens on the windows, Bob and Lea Anne would play Scrabble by the light of a kerosene lantern. When the game ended, they turned off the lantern and quickly jumped into bed under the mosquito netting before the bats flew in through the windows. “That year was a huge baptism for me,” Einterz says. “I learned firsthand about the concept of primary health care, a physician’s role in the community, and the role of economics and culture in health care. We worked on income generation, family planning, and creating mothers’ groups. I learned about the critically important role of women in development. Overall, the experience working side-by-side in the community taught me both about the complexity of delivering quality public health and about the importance of community to tackle these problems. “These were things not covered in med school, and they hit me in the face in rural Haiti.” But Einterz’s background had prepared him unusually well to face challenges to conventional wisdom. By the time Einterz entered junior high school, his father, Frank, a manager of foodprocessing plants, and his mother, Cora, had moved their ever- 24 walking together, walking far 24 walking together, walking far growing family several times, first within New York State, then to St. Joseph, Michigan, and finally to Indianapolis. Frank chaired heated nightly discussions around the dinner table, and lectured the thirteen children on the virtues of the Stoic philosophers, including Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, along with the basics of Jesuit and Franciscan theology. It was a socially conservative and intellectually demanding Roman Catholic upbringing that emphasized the principle that with privilege comes responsibility. All of the children were encouraged to speak their mind—and to be prepared to defend themselves from the inevitable challenges launched by siblings or parents. Einterz’s elder siblings Frank Jr. and Ellen both joined the Peace Corps and headed to Africa, Frank...