Yuko Shirakawa remembers being taken by surprise when she was asked this question: “Have you never thought of becoming a doctor?”
“Now that you mention it, no, I haven’t,” she replied.
Shirakawa, 50, is a nurse and member of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a nongovernmental organization that provides medical care in conflict zones.
“I like caring for my patients as a nurse,” she said when I interviewed her recently.
She recalled her time in Syria. A high school girl was brought in whose heel bones in both feet had been shattered in an air raid.
Shirakawa kept talking to the despondent teenager, squeezing her hand over and over.
About a month later, the girl smiled at Shirakawa. It was a moment of epiphany: “I realized there are things I can only do as a nurse.”
I asked Shirakawa to elaborate.
For one, she said, if her patients are moaning and writhing in pain, she stays right by their sides and speaks comforting words. With patients who are overwrought and can’t sleep, she remains at their bedsides and listens to their worries and fears for as long as they need.
Such efforts on her part can help ease the pain or fear of some patients and bring them comfort, even if only a tiny bit.
“That’s the best part and the ultimate reward of being a nurse,” she explained.
In Iraq, Gaza and South Sudan, Shirakawa cared for endless streams of bloodied and mangled patients, which sometimes made her feel almost overwhelmed by the seeming futility of it all.
“Seen at close range, war is just too horrendous,” she noted. She has witnessed too many scenes of carnage that are neither from TV nor film.
And humans are slaughtering one another, even as we speak. We must stop this. But how?
Shirakawa the nurse keeps agonizing over this dilemma.
—The Asahi Shimbun, April 22
* * *
Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
VOX POPULI: Doctors Without Borders nurse comforts, listens to war victims
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25.04.2024
Yuko Shirakawa remembers being taken by surprise when she was asked this question: “Have you never thought of becoming a doctor?”
“Now that you mention it, no, I haven’t,” she replied.
Shirakawa, 50, is a nurse and member of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a nongovernmental organization that provides medical care in conflict zones.
“I like caring for my patients as a nurse,” she said when I interviewed her recently.
She recalled her time in Syria. A high school girl was brought in whose heel........
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