Operation Medical Libraries spreads globally

Soldiers load donated books for shipment to Iraq. Photo credit/Reed Hutchinson

What started with an e-mail from a UCLA med school grad serving in the U.S. Army has spread to an international effort to help doctors in war-torn and poverty-stricken countries.

In 2007, Maj. Laura Pacha contacted UCLA Medical Alumni Association Director Valerie Walker with a plea for donations of medical textbooks and journals for Iraqi physicians.

Walker appealed to UCLA medical alumni and began shipping books through the U.S. military for doctors and nurses serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan to distribute. Since 1994, the Iraqi government had sealed off the country from new medical books, and in Afghanistan the Taliban banned nude images even in medical texts. The lack of reliable electricity limited physician access to Internet material that could supplement their outdated books.

Since the program started, more than 15 tons of books and journals have been shipped to the region. All five UC health science campuses now participate, and medical schools, hospitals, publishers and doctors around the country have since joined the effort. Recently, Walker expanded Operation Medical Libraries to Malawi, Mozambique, Morocco, Uganda, Peru and the Solomon Islands and also collects equipment such as microscopes and stethoscopes.

For more information: operationmedicallibraries.blogspot.com.