Return to Emory Report home page
Christine Kordecki knew in advance that her February trip to India with the Flying Doctors of America would give her the opportunity to help hundreds of people in need of medical care. But she didn't realize that she would get to meet the woman who wrote the book on helping people in need: Mother Teresa.
A management engineer in management systems at Emory Hospital, Kordecki and the rest of the team of physicians, nurses and support staff spent two days with Mother Teresa.
"The first day, we went to her convent," said Kordecki. "All of a sudden she just appeared. I had put my hand out to shake hands with her. She grabbed my hand, led me down the stairs and sat me down. Our team was scheduled to have an interview with her, and everybody else gathered around us. The whole interview was being taped by CNN. I was sitting there thinking, `I'm going to give some of my fellow travelers the opportunity to sit here and get their picture taken so close to Mother Teresa. I tried getting up, but she looked at me and said, `Sit down.' I felt a little intimidated, but I still thought that was pretty neat."
During her interview with Kordecki's medical team, Mother Teresa discussed the possibility of opening more missions in the United States and again voiced her opposition to abortion. "She also talked about helping the poorest of the poor," said Kordecki, who traveled to India 10 years ago on a Fulbright grant to study women, the family and social change. "It's amazing the way she's motivated people to help. She always seems able to get what she wants. She's a very powerful person."
A desire to help
Although she's not a world renowned humanitarian like Mother Teresa, Kordecki (along with the rest of her team) was viewed as a powerful healer by the mostly poor villagers she helped treat. The 21-member Flying Doctors group, which included five physicians, five nurses, three pharmacists, one veterinarian and support staff, set up a clinic and a pharmacy in the village of Pedamaddali, the home village of Drs. Rao and Hyma Mikkilineni, who practice pulmonary and internal medicine in Riverdale.
The responsibility for setting up and operating the lab that supported the clinic fell to Kordecki, who holds a bachelor's degree in medical technology from Marquette University and a Master of Science in Health Systems from Georgia Tech. "Before the trip, I thought that [Flying Doctors] already had a lab put together, but they had absolutely nothing," said Kordecki, who found out about the trip through a newspaper ad. "I basically had to figure out what kind of tests we were going to do and then get the supplies and equipment to do the tests."
Kordecki performed mostly basic medical tests, including hemoglobin, urinalysis and glucose screens. "One day I saw 78 patients and did 139 tests," she said. (The entire team saw 1,500 patients during the week.) "For one person, that's quite a bit. I did everything myself, the paperwork, the sticking, the testing."
The five days that the group spent in Pedamaddali were long ones, Kordecki said, primarily due to the one- to two-hour commute from their hotel to the village. Kordecki said that poor road conditions and heavy harvesting traffic, rather than distance, made the commute longer. "We would leave our hotel between 6 and 7 in the morning and get back at 9 or 10 at night," she said. "We didn't even go to dinner or anything like that; we would just crash."
A simpler lifestyle
Maintaining such a back-breaking schedule was made easier for Kordecki by the people in the village. "We are so spoiled in the United States; we have so much," she said. "You look at the people in the village, and they hardly have anything. They live in these huts. They would come in feeling bad and look at you as if you could really help them. All you can do is give them a pill or something. That was just heart-wrenching. Their expectations were so high, and what could I do except give them a blood test?"
Kordecki was surprised that the team didn't see more infections, as they had anticipated. "What we mainly saw were swollen joints and related problems, especially with the knees," she said. "They mainly sit on the floor and frequently in squatting-type positions. The people are laborers and they do everything manually. They wash their clothes in the lake. It's pretty primitive compared to all the luxuries that we have."
Seeing beyond the comparative luxury of American life and following the example of Mother Teresa has long been important to Kordecki. "I always knew that I wanted to be a missionary," she said. "But I also knew that I could never give up my comfortable, convenient life in the United States. This trip allowed me to go and be a missionary for a few days."
The trip also has inspired her to donate time at least once a month to work in a clinic lab associated with the DeKalb Medical Society that serves patients who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare and who can't afford private insurance. Mother Teresa would certainly approve.
--Dan Treadaway
Return to Emory Report home page