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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah doctors have donated 54 boxes of textbooks and medical journals to go Iraqi physicians.
Lt. Daniel Winschel, a physician assistant serving with the American military in Iraq, noticed a serious shortage of medical journals and textbooks in that country, Intermountain Health Care said.
Textbooks were often 12 to 15 years old and so scarce that chapters were copied and passed around.
Winschel wrote to the Special Forces Association, a veterans' fraternal organization, requesting current medical literature for Iraqi doctors.
Dr. Charles Sorenson, executive vice president and chief medical officer of IHC, received Winschel's e-mail and began searching for up-to-date materials.
"I thought this would be an unusual opportunity for clinicians in Utah to help colleagues who have been living and working under extremely difficult circumstances," Sorenson said.
Wes Thompson, vice president of IHC's Community Health Partnerships, said an e-mail went out to physicians in the IHC system, and response was terrific.
"We started getting boxes (of books and journals) and phone calls," he said. Medical staffs were "very enthusiastic to donate to the betterment and care of the people of Iraq."
The 54 boxes contain 1,487 items.
Thompson said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints agreed to include the medical literature in a large shipment of humanitarian aid to Iraq.
The books and journals are to be distributed by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
