“healing others without hurting yourself” – interview (print) Globe & Mail – April 17, 2009

By Hayle Mick

I don’t think that I will end up ruined, but there are certain things that are going to be tough to share.”

Toronto physician James Maskalyk typed those words from the contested border town of Abyei, Sudan, in 2007 as a field doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières. Soldiers from each side of Africa’s longest, bloodiest war faced each other over an oil-rich region that teetered on the brink of full-scale war. And between them sat the small hospital where Dr. Maskalyk and his small team strained to help its worn, fearful population.

Now Dr. Maskalyk’s blog dispatches – short, unflinching accounts of his days spent trying to meet the needs of so many with so little – have been expanded into a book: Six Months in Sudan, released this week by Doubleday Canada.

Over coffee near his home in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood, he described why he has shared his experience. And why a place so hot and dusty and tormented can leave you ruined – and still wanting to go back.

What started as James Maskalyk’s blog dispatches as a field doctor has been expanded into a new book, Six Months in Sudan.

Why did you set out for Sudan with a plan to blog about your experience?

I knew it would give me a chance to write, and to keep in touch with my family and friends. Because I was really cut off. [MSF] didn’t really encourage too many e-mails. Satellite phone was three bucks a minute. This was sort of like keeping notes. And then it became clear that there was an audience of people who were interested in understanding, and felt connected, through me, to Sudan. And I sort of realized that this was a chance to tell the story.

When did you notice that you were being noticed by people other than family and friends?

I started to get comments from people, initially from Canada. Just offers of support, which was really great. But then, I started to get comments from Jamaica and Australia. …

I put up a picture of a boy whose rash I couldn’t figure out. And then I got a bunch of responses from infectious-disease specialists. I think it really led to a real-world result. We started this kid on TB treatment and he walked for the first time in his whole life. He was 3. And I think that was the first hint of the power of connectivity.

In one of your blog posts, you described seeing a baby girl die. You wrote that normally you  edited those types of stories out, but not this time. Why?

I was so used to keeping those things inside. Thinking … no one wants to hear my problems. [After the baby died, a colleague said,] ‘You don’t have to keep everything [in your chest] all the time.’ And I thought, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll try. So that was my first foray into that. To open that part up.

I felt really distanced from the result. I just typed into the computer and pressed send. I never really had to sit down with someone and say, ‘I had a really tough day today.’ It’s easier to put it out into the ether.

It’s interesting. I was talking with someone who read the book, and they said: ‘It’s the first time we got inside the MSF compound.’ Because it’s usually journalists or someone on the outside, where it’s kind of rah-rah. Or there’s a sanctified aura around that experience. But the truth is, people struggle with moments of indecision, personally and professionally, of what am I doing, and who am I, and I don’t know what to do. And that’s the natural human condition.

I hope people realize they don’t have to be some superhero, always confident and knowledgeable and sacrificing yourself for the team all the time. It’s just regular men and women from all over who believe in this thing.

You wrote about a colleague who said your first mission with MSF would ‘ruin’ you. What did he mean?

It’s tough to go back to your regular life and not have that place inside of you, in some way. You’re always choosing not to go back.

So, are you ruined?

I don’t think so. I’m pulled back there, in a way. That’s always going to be a part of who I am. And there’s nothing I can do about that any more.

Will you go on another mission?

I’ve got a project in Ethiopia coming up in September, and I hope to do another mission with MSF.

How has Sudan affected your work as an emergency room doctor at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto?

It’s a relief to come back and be able to say to someone, ‘I can offer you the best medicine in the world.’ When I was in Sudan, I could say, ‘I can do the best I can.’ You feel, as a doctor, that you’re not living up to your end of the bargain.

What do you hope people take away from the book?

I guess that, you make the world that you live in by acting, or not. And it’s not really this hopeless, helpless place. People are actually doing it. Right now. And this isn’t something that’s particularly heroic. It’s open to everyone to get the picture and to understand the world, and your place in it.