Fighting HIV/AIDS: Houston’s lifeline to Africa

Mark Kline is the founder of the PAC and this is his article from the Houston Chronicle this week. We said goodbye to Dave and Amy last Monday morning after 4 years in Swaziland. It was bittersweet and a bit like watching the 'Mom & Dad' of Baylor Swaziland depart. But, there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of awesome PAC Doctors to get it done in Swaziland. This is a shout out to Dave and Amy and a word of recognition and encouragement to those who remain. Keep on keepin' on.

By MARK W. KLINE, M.D.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

June 5, 2010, 4:14PM

Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital sent some of America's best and brightest young pediatricians and family doctors to Africa in 2006 to help battle an unfolding health care cataclysm — HIV/AIDS.

The concept was simple. Africa, with just 10 percent of the world's children, was home to 90 percent of all children living with HIV/AIDS. Many were dying simply from lack of access to clinics, doctors and nurses versed in routine pediatric care and the use of lifesaving anti-retroviral medications. In Malawi, there was just one pediatrician for every 500,000 children. Sending in 10 American pediatricians effectively would more than double the number of trained doctors available to care for and treat Malawian children with HIV/AIDS. Children would live instead of die.

The Pediatric AIDS Corps was born. Its two-part mission: Dramatically expand access of African children to lifesaving HIV/AIDS care and treatment, and train thousands of African health professionals in the care of children with HIV/AIDS and other serious or life-threatening diseases. In that first year, 52 eager and idealistic young physicians were trained here in Houston and sent to work at Baylor and Texas Children's facilities in six hard-hit African countries.

One of those young doctors was Tony Garcia-Prats, the oldest of 10 boys from a prominent Houston family and the graduating chief resident in pediatrics from Baylor and Texas Children's. Tony could have written his own ticket to virtually any high-profile pediatric practice opportunity in America. Instead, he and his wife, Heather Draper, chose Maseru, Lesotho. For an annual salary of $40,000, Tony committed himself to difficult living conditions far from family and friends, long hours, and a seemingly endless torrent of some of the world's poorest and sickest children and families. Nearly four years later, Tony and Heather are living and working at a new Baylor/Texas Children's center in the central highlands of Tanzania and are the proud parents of three girls, including adopted twin daughters from Lesotho.

Amy and David McCollum were among the very first doctors recruited to the Pediatric AIDS Corps. Natives of Mississippi, they had trained at the prestigious University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. I invited them to Houston for an interview and offered them jobs in Africa over enchiladas at Chuy's on Westheimer. Soon afterward, they were in Mbabane, Swaziland, with their beautiful toddler, Molly. Over the past four years, they have done more than most of us could hope to do in a lifetime of service to humanity, providing medical care to desperately ill children and families and training African doctors and nurses. With the addition of Laine and Duma, their little family of three now is a beautifully blended family of five. They will return to the United States shortly for additional medical training in infectious diseases.

Thanks in large part to Tony, Amy and David and more than 120 other outstanding young American doctors, the number of HIV-infected children receiving care in Baylor and Texas Children's centers across Africa has increased from just 10,000 to more than 70,000 in less than four years. About 4,000 new children and families are added to that total each month. And the death rate in the African centers has plummeted to only about 1 percent per year, comparable to results achieved at Texas Children's Hospital and other top American centers.

In the context of endless discussions of health care reform, cost containment and the business of medicine, one might be led to believe that the idealistic young physician with an abiding interest in the well-being of his or her patients and a commitment to the principles of Hippocrates is a thing of the past, but this clearly is not the case. Core values endure and find expression in unexpected ways and unexpected places. The mere existence of a Pediatric AIDS Corps bodes well not just for Africans, but for ill American children and families, as well.

Kline is professor and chairman in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Texas Children's Hospital.