March 9, 2006

Saving the world one child at a time

Nurse travels the world tending to the underprivileged

By Jeanne Carbone Lewis
Staff Writer

At the young age of 23, Katherine “Kat” McLaughlin has already had a lifetime of experiences. She’s cared for HIV-infected children in South Africa, delivered a baby in Guatemala and been robbed in Cape Town.

The children at Village Panimaquip were excited to meet Kat. The young boy, right, has Down Syndrome. Photos courtesy Kat McLaughlin

McLaughlin, who grew up in the Almaden Valley, will graduate from the University of California San Francisco [USF] in May with a B.S. degree in science and nursing. She does her clinical rotations at Stanford. And she just returned in January from a two-week trip to Guatemala with her USF Global Issues and Community Health class.

“This trip has really opened the eyes of students to the international problem of extreme poverty,” said USF Professor Linda Walsh. “We have reflection every evening and it is clear they understand the interconnections between politics, power and poverty. I think that it is their personal characteristics and the experience they have at USF that have strengthened their commitment to social justice.”

Guatemala
McLaughlin was one of the students led by Professor Walsh on a trip, which focused on women’s health and maternity issues while providing services to a small parish hospital in San Luis Toliman, Guatemala, and to several small clinics that serve the area. They also accompanied the indigenous comadronas [midwives] and assisted in prenatal visits at the pregnant women’s homes.

“Most of the women there have their babies at home,” said McLaughlin. “It costs about $100 for them to go to the hospital for a delivery. That’s about three fourths of a month’s income. We saw women from 14 to 42 years old, but most were 18 to 24 with two or three children already. They marry young and can expect to have eight to 15 kids. Birth control is against their religious beliefs.”

McLaughlin would interview the women in Spanish. An examination would follow with the comadronas and student nurses. High blood pressure, edema and hypertension were common. Then the students would present the women with vitamins, birthing blankets and baby clothes. McLaughlin was the only student who helped deliver a baby.

“It was a beautiful baby,” said McLaughlin. “The mother stayed for a day and we gave her presents and a photo of the baby. She was so grateful and appreciative. She delivered the baby without pain medications or equipment. And never once did she complain.”

Student nurses Marci and Kat enjoy the children of San Lucas Tolimon.

Guatemala is a third-world county rife with poverty. Rape is rampant in some of the outlying areas. The families McLaughlin saw lived in cinder block houses with dirt floors and no running water or electricity. She reports that the families “live in the moment,” where obtaining water may take all day. Seventy-five percent of the population lives below the poverty level with 35.93 deaths for every 1,000 live births. McLaughlin raised $1,200 to assist with the gifts that were given to the pregnant women. A grant supplied the much-needed equipment of a fetal heart monitor and ultrasound machine for the clinic.

“It takes a lot out of you seeing how hard it is for these people but you discover what is important in life,” said McLaughlin. “Some people live, some people die. You can only do your best.”

McLaughlin and the eight other nursing students on the trip lived in a hostel where conditions were OK, but still challenging. They discovered that the freezing cold water would turn lukewarm in the afternoon for showers and visits from insects and tarantulas were common occurrences.

Kat
McLaughlin was born in Boston, Mass. The family moved to Almaden when she was 6 and her older brother, Andrew was 8. She attended Holy Spirit and Presentation High School. Always active, she played volleyball, gymnastics and varsity basketball for four years. Her feminine side was enriched with tap, jazz and ballet lessons even though she was born with only one kidney and the doctors advised Kat and her parents against strenuous physical activity. The go-getter was even senior class president. There was no stopping Kat.

“Kat helped at food drives and collecting for the underprivileged,” said McLaughlin’s mother, Doreen Lipinski who McLaughlin calls her best friend. “We were members of the National Charity League and helped at Sacred Heart. She has a compassion for life and helping others. She is an exceptional woman. I’m very fortunate to have her as a daughter.”

McLaughlin traveled to Canada, Florida, Hawaii and Boston while growing up and these adventures instilled in her a love of new places. She credits her grandfather, a general physician, with inspiring her to pursue the field of medicine.

Africa
Last August, McLaughlin spent four “life-changing” weeks in the impoverished townships outside Cape Town, South Africa with Child Family Health Inter-national. The San Francisco-based nonprofit agency provides international nursing and medical students in medically underserved locations. She and another student lived with a Muslim family as they provided care to HIV-positive babies and tendered roadside emergency medical treatments for accident victims, and dealt with drug overdoses and complications from asthma, tuberculosis or HIV. She even delivered a woman’s baby on a dirt road while wild dogs circled them. She said poverty was everywhere in the shantytowns.

“I was worried when she was in Africa,” said Lipinski. “She was worlds away and it is a dangerous place. She would e-mail us from an Internet café when she had time. It was haunting for her to see the HIV babies left in cribs to die. And then when she came back to the United States she would say a $3 cup of coffee would feed a family for a month.”

A close call came when McLaughlin visited a store for supplies and a desperate woman threw her against a wall and stole her wallet. It contained approximately $300 in cash and her credit cards. Although the attack startled McLaughlin, she took it in stride and decided to think of the loss as a donation.

Kat poses in front of a Guatemalan woman’s vibrantly weaved blankets for sale near Village San Martin.

The future
So at only 23-years-old, Kat McLaughlin has experienced what many may never imagine. She keenly peers to the future and contemplates her future. First, she must complete a research paper on Guatemala anencephalic [without brains] babies—a common birth defect in Guatemala due to poor nutrition.

She was living in San Francisco, but recently moved to her parent’s new home in Campbell. This summer, she is planning a trip to Australia and New Zealand and would like to plan service work in India. Next fall, she may take a job at UCLA or Stanford in pediatrics ICU. Her long-term plans are to attend graduate school and become a nurse anesthetist.

“I thought I wanted to be a doctor for awhile,” said McLaughlin. “But I like the relationships that develop with people you have as a nurse. It’s hands-on care and medicine at its best. My love is international nursing. I want to help underprivileged people globally. I feel it is my calling.”

No matter what path the young nurse follows next, the world will be a better place because she is in it.