When Timothy Flanigan ’79called Hanover home as an undergraduate, he and a group of friends at Aquinas House, Dartmouth’s Catholic student center, drove to the Bronx to meet Mother Teresa. Flanigan said her words and history inspired him — not simply because she was generous, but also because she was courageous in helping others, no matter the danger.
Following Mother Teresa’s example, Flanigantook a break this August from his position as professor of medicine at Brown University Medical School’s infectious diseases division to set off for Monrovia, Liberia.In Monrovia, he has worked to improve the area’s Ebola response through training, strategy and protective equipment in area clinics.
In a phone interview via Viber from Monrovia, Flanigan described the challenges of working in Liberia, a nation still reeling from a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, where corruption is “endemic” and infrastructure menial.
More than 2,600 people have perished during this Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone alone, the World Health Organization reported Thursday. As a result of continued deaths, President Barack Obama announced a bolstered effort to combat Ebola last week, relying on military infrastructure to provide care.
Flanigan hailed Obama’s latest announcement, noting that the military, which has feared that Ebola might be used as a biological weapon, has superior capabilities to treat the disease. He called previous American support for Ebola insufficient.
Flanigan emphasized the bravery of health workers aiding those stricken with Ebola, noting that a large number, especially those without an understanding of the disease, have refused to provide care.
“It is a frightful and a fearful epidemic,” he said. “Ebola evokes this deep, dark fear in all of us, so it’s really important to understand it from an infectious disease point of view and really make sure you have all the tools to protect yourself and be thoughtful, careful about it.”
To embark to Monrovia, Flanigan boarded the final Delta Air Lines flight to Accra, Ghana, before service to the country was cancelled. He said his family was supportive of the decision to help coordinate responses to the disease, but he did note his wife -— also a doctor — had some safety concerns.
“She said, ‘Oh, I can man the fort and take care of all the problems,’ — which she does mostly anyway — ‘And if you think you can make a difference, go right on over,” Flanigan said. “‘Just please be safe and be really, really careful.’”
But distance from family can be difficult. Flanigan said he connects with his two children still at home and wife using Skype or Viber each night.
He plans to stay in Liberia for a total of two months, noting that much training must still occur.
Flanigan is also a deacon, and he connected with health workers in Liberia through Caritas Internationalis, a Catholic charity. On Sept. 15, he delivered a homily and then discussed Ebola. Mixing the two, he wrote on his blog, felt quite unusual.
Although several American doctors who have treated the disease have died after contracting Ebola, Flanigan said he does not worry that the outbreak will afflict the U.S. The U.S., he said, has the know-how and infrastructure to isolate and treat infectious diseases, resources that West African countries lack.
At Brown, Flanigan is a serious researcher — his resume lists 232 original publications in peer-reviewed journals — and he said that his experience in Liberia will likely shape the future direction of his studies.
Brown professor of medicine and epidemiology Josiah Rich, who has worked with Flanigan for more than 20 years, said Flanigan had “the ability to talk a dog off a meat wagon.”He emphasized Flanigan’s sharp thinking and said Flanigan predicted Liberia would be severely affected by Ebola before the current situation was clear.
Rich said it was uncommon for researchers as prolific as Flanigan to depart for an emergency area. He added that Flanigan’s work in the Catholic Church and as a medical researcher “straddles several worlds.”
“He is a card-carrying member — literally — of the Catholic Church,” Rich said.
Vanderbilt University professor of preventive medicine William Schaffner, who has been quoted in media sources such as CNN regarding the outbreak, declined to estimate how many American doctors have left the U.S. to treat Ebola, as there are a wealth of organizations through which health workers might link up with African medical systems.
Doctors Without Borders wrote in early August that 200 international health workers were working in the region. Michael David, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago’s infectious diseases department, wrote in an email that he estimates far fewer than 100 of these are doctors. But a number of other organizations, such as Caritas or Partners in Health, have doctors in the region as well.
David estimated in an interview that there are dozens of American doctors treating the disease in West Africa.
Schaffner said organizing these diverse responses remains a significant challenge, but Obama’s recent announcement may bring better coordination.
“There’s an old phrase: ‘the road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions,’” Schaffner said. “So you have all these groups, with their best of intentions, all very honorable, but they can contribute to fouling it up as well as doing things better.”
Schaffner said training efforts were critical, citing the ‘teach a man to fish’ adage as illustrative of the impact of this work. It is quite common, Schaffner said, for doctors treating Ebola directly to provide training.
David noted that Flanigan’s work is dangerous. Precautions against the disease include wearing gear that can take more than 10 minutes to put on. Davis said health workers like Flanigan are “sacrificing their safety,” he said.
Dick’s House co-director Jack Turco recently emailed campus requesting that community members who visited Ebola-affected countries contact Health Services. He said in an interview that this accords with protocol laid out by the New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services.
Although Turco declined to provide an exact estimate of the number to whom the alert might apply, he speculated that the number is fewer than 100 people.
Meetings have been held at the College and at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to discuss health policies if the disease were found at Dartmouth, Turco said. If someone had Ebola on campus, the person would be sent to DHMC, he said, which has the requisite equipment to treat the disease.
