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For Prof. Mick Alkan, Crisis is a Calling

For Prof. Mick Alkan, Crisis is a Calling

February 11, 2016

Leadership, Awards & Events, Medical Research

The Jewish Exponent – As the ground beneath his feet heaved and shook, Prof. Michael “Mick” Alkan, M.D., found himself swaying and shuddering alongside the people and remaining buildings around him. Dr. Alkan, professor emeritus of medicine at BGU’s Medical School for International Health, was in Nepal helping survivors of the country’s catastrophic earthquake in April 2015, and had just experienced one of the countless aftershocks that followed.

“That was the fright of my life,” Prof. Alkan said at a recent event at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Prof. Mick Alkan

“I felt absolutely helpless. We felt that there was nothing to hold onto. You were somewhere between standing and floating.”

Prof. Alkan, who is known for being among the first on the scene to provide medical relief to victims of disasters worldwide, participated in a series of events in the Philadelphia area in conjunction with Americans for Ben-Gurion University’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

He told the audience about how he was tasked with assembling a team of eight people from BGU to provide first aid in Nepal for two weeks. Prof. Alkan also reflected on the emotional toll being in such a devastated area can take.

“What we saw was not only a result of the earthquake, but people with diseases who couldn’t get health care,” he said.

“It was heartbreaking – the Nepali nation was in dire straits before the earthquake and afterward, it was much worse.”

He recalled his experience in post-Hurricane Katrina Louisiana as well, recalling how he and his team replaced a team of doctors and nurses there who had not slept for three days.

“My big accomplishment there was to take a woman who probably had tuberculosis in a helicopter back with us to the hospital,” Prof. Alkan said. “She might have died.”

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