By Meg Jones
December 8, 2009
FOB Salerno, Afghanistan — Yusuf Khan went through medical school during the Taliban occupation, a time when only men were allowed to study medicine.
Medical care in this poor, war-ravaged country resembles nothing of the American system. But a group of Wisconsin-based Army Reserve soldiers are mentoring Khan, 37, and other Afghan doctors through an innovative residency program.
Afghan doctors are chosen for one-month residencies at the medical facility in this U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, now staffed by the 452nd Combat Support Hospital headquartered in Milwaukee.
The education of many Afghan doctors has been fragmented because of the war, and at one point the Taliban confiscated and destroyed medical textbooks featuring illustrations. Maj. Nancy Taft, who completed her general surgery residency at Froedtert Hospital through the Medical College of Wisconsin, brought some of her medical texts to Afghanistan, and she has used them to help the Afghan doctors.
Just as the American and coalition forces are working as mentors to the Afghan police and army so one day local security forces can preserve peace and help create a stable society, a group of medical personnel from Wisconsin is trying to improve health care in this country.
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