Heritage Snapshot: Part 87

Without doubt, one of Loma Linda University’s most spectacular outreaches has been the activities of its Overseas Heart Surgery Team. Founded in 1963 by Ellsworth E. Wareham, MD (Class of 1942) and C. Joan Coggin, MD (Class of 1953-A), the Team has performed more heart surgeries in more countries than has any similar organization on record. Starting on April 29, 1963, the Loma Linda team flew to Karachi, Pakistan to perform life-saving heart surgery. During the following month the team evaluated 300 patients in Pakistan and performed 44 surgeries. The United States Department of State soon realized that they had done a “good thing” in allowing the contact to be made. An olive-skinned girl with brown eyes, Afshan had been born a “blue baby.” She was an invalid, unable to play with other children. Because her physicians had told her parents that they regretfully could not help her, Mr. and Mrs. Zafar resigned themselves to the fact that their daughter’s tiny heart would someday fail. Then one day in June 1961, Afshan’s father read a story in Signs of the Times regarding Loma Linda University’s White Memorial Hospital. Promptly he wrote to the magazine’s editor, Arthur S. Maxwell, seeking “advice, guidance, and help” for his “lovely doll.” The article had briefly mentioned the White’s newly established open-heart surgery program. Maxwell wrote back advising Mr. Zafar to take his daughter to the Seventh-day Adventist hospital in Karachi. Then he sent copies of all correspondence to the White Memorial Hospital. Two specialists took up the cause—Morton M. Woolley, MD (Class of 1951), Associate Professor of Surgery and a specialist in children’s surgery, and Earle D. Case, Assistant Administrator. They wrote Mr. Zafar, saying that the White Memorial Hospital had facilities for both diagnostic work and surgery. Following Arthur Maxwell’s advice, Mr. Zafar took Afshan to Karachi and met Roscoe I. McFadden, MD (Class of 1940), Medical Director of the Adventist hospital there. Following a physical examination and a series of diagnostic tests, McFadden confirmed that the little girl did indeed need heart surgery. That option, available only in Great Britain or the United States, seemed financially impossible to the Pakistani factory worker. The two men sat in silence. “Perhaps,” Dr. McFadden speculated, “just perhaps, the physicians at the University I attended would be willing to do the work without charge.” A determined Mr. Zafar launched a one-man campaign to save his invalid daughter. He wrote letters to airlines, the United States Embassy, the editor of Signs of the Times, and to the administrator of the White Memorial Hospital. Dr. Woolley and his colleagues readily agreed to cover the cost of the surgery and to provide whatever services might be needed. Transportation, however, remained a problem. In a letter, John Parrish, Loma Linda University Public Information Officer, suggested that Mr. Zafar again contact the United States Embassy in Karachi. He proposed that the man present all correspondence and specifically request that the Embassy arrange for transportation for Afshan and one parent to and from the United States. As a result, the office of Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the United States Military Air Transport Service to fly the Pakistani father and daughter to California. It took more than a year of negotiations. Then, on October 1, 1962, Dr. Woolley and Ellsworth E. Wareham performed a five-hour heart surgery on Afshan Zafar. During the little girl’s intensive postoperative care, Afshan began to change dramatically. Her pale blue skin pinked up. Her breathing stabilized. Her overjoyed Muslim father wrote home, “Allah has saved our little Afshan. He has used the American doctors to bring new life to our precious daughter.”