Flying Adventure Through the Outback of Australia

“Hitler! Kintiltungku la? Where? Where is the pika?”

A forlorn, grayed man, emanating odors of rich goanna oil and pungent gum tree smoke rested in the metal chair as I searched for his ailment. His brown skin, usually reflecting bright sun and warm desert earth, had become dull and loose. He gasped for breaths of air. With no response to my queries, I asked again “where is the pika Hitler, the pain?” No response, I am not of his clan. My ancestors are not one with the great desert snake. Since he did not know my ancestry, he did not speak with me. My roving stethoscope resounds with E to A sign of Shibley2 and whispering pectoriloquey3. These sounds indicate lung sacs filled with fluid. The gentle man searched my face for an answer. The elder of the tribe had severe pneumonia. We decided to evacuate him to a hospital. The sky soon carried the sound of airplane engines as the approaching Royal Flying Doctor Service plane landed near the desert clinic. Blue and white painted wings peek out from the puffy clouds and we watched as the life-saving prop airplane glides down to the red dirt landing strip in front of us. We packed up the man in the Pilatus, donning extra oxygen on him for the flight to a city hospital for safe treatment.

In the early 1980s, several months of flying through the lands of Western Australia with the Royal Flying Doctor Service showed me glimpses of life for inhabitants of the outback. The service provides medical care to “outback” inhabitants who consist of sheep and cattle stationers, miners, and Aboriginals. The main base from which I worked during a medical school summer internship was Meekathara, a town of about nine hundred people located in the center of the Western state of Australia.

In childhood, watching outdoor colors change from day to day during the morning to night variations enmeshed my mind with colorful palates of imagined adventures. While strolling through forest trails, weeds, seeds and flowers would color my visual canvas with beauty. Then, after bringing the panoply of flowers and leaves home, I’d study the color variations and veins of the chosen plants. Fall changed into Christmas season and our house was decorated with pine boughs as my mother baked cookies in the kitchen. She asked us to go play so we did, in her room. In preparation for the holidays, my parents would hide presents under their bed. I found a small stash of them when wrestling with my siblings on the floor of my parents’ room. They had not made their bed in the morning and I saw toys peeking out under their bedspread. I was eight years old wrestling with my brother and on the floor when under their bed I saw a dinosaur set and another box. Curiosity led me to check these out, “Why wait?” I peeked under my mother’s and father’s bed. Wow there was a microscope and bug kit! I thought it was for my brothers, “the boys.” I was happily wrong though. I was lucky enough to receive the gift. The science kit contained a microscope, prepared slides with objects glued on them, empty slides and instructions for making slides with your own samples to fix on the slides and then watch them under the microscope lens. Foraging outdoors there were plenty of bugs and objects to collect for study under the microscope. But it was also fun, if you had a scab, to open it a little bit to take out some fresh blood and place it on a slide to look at the red blood cells under the microscope. Yes budding young doctors have to perform “experiments.” This was minor compared to what we had to do when in medical school. The red blood cells were bouncy round with raised edges looking like little red doughnuts floating around. Of course this fascination with biology led my parents to encourage me to study medicine.

Many parents of the 1950s wished that their children would “study hard” and go into a profession for their life’s calling. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do really, because although I was fascinated with biology, I was also enthralled with art and fairly talented in the field. Underlying these proclivities was a lust for adventure and travel. Being a rather “good” kid, or at least one that listened to their parents and did not “get into trouble,” I did study and follow my dreams and capabilities and my parents’ aspirations.

After college, I entered medical school, an osteopathic medical school that was one of the first to focus on holistic medicine. While studying medicine, I was determined to have as much fun as possible. While many students would sit around at lunchtime spending their one to two hours talking to friends about anatomy dissections when not eating, I would use that time to study so that I could spend later afternoons outdoors hiking or cross country skiing. Many students would spend whole weekends studying so much that they did not get time to see their families. I found that I like early morning best and am wide awake and productive at that time of day. So I would get up early and open the windows to let fresh air fill the room as I studied, while the birds sang their early morning songs as background music. I would also read at lunchtime so I would have free time on the weekends to do things that I did like such as horseback ride and cross-country ski. A love of adventure has been with me always.

From my father I think I inherited a genetic love of airplanes and flying. He had been a school teacher originally and joined the United States Navy during World War II. After training to fly airplanes he often captained transport planes full of sick soldiers to hospitals and supplies to South America. When the pilots were not flying they amused themselves as little boys do. I grew up listening to stories of the pranks he and his fellow crew members played on each other, such as the old teenage wrapping a man to his bed with toilet paper. Towards the end of the Second World War, he became one of the elite Pan-American Airways pilots. He continued to joke around throughout his life and related his escapades as dinner time stories. The amusements continued during his work years as an airline captain. In the early years of commercial flying there were not many planes in the sky. One of his favorite schemes was to make an audio announcement to the passengers to get out of their seat and go over to one side of the airplane to look at some landmark below. On cue from a stewardess, when enough passengers went over to peek out the windows on one side of the plane, he would sharply tilt and turn the airplane to that side. Then when the flight attendant let him know the passengers were on one side of the plane, he would quickly get on the intercom and tell them to get back in their seats otherwise the plane would roll over. Of course this was in the days when commercial flying was new and jokes in the workplace were still tolerated.

During some of the family vacations or for overseas assignments, we travelled with our father. This gave our family an opportunity to experience cultures of other countries. Then during college Jane Goodall, the chimpanzee researcher, taught one of the anthropology courses and her research sparked an adventure bug in me. I wished to work outside the United States, somewhere with a culture other than the one I grew up with.

Like many other children of Depression-age parents, it was important to “study hard” and strive to be the best in not just one, but all your endeavors including school, sports, piano, ballet, horseback riding, cooking, cleaning, fixing pipes and electrical repairs. If we studied ballet, it was strive to be like Susan Jaffe4. If we studied piano, look at what Van Cliburn played. Kind of high expectations? At least that’s pretty much what was expected in my family. Perhaps this type of encouragement helps develop personal drive and discipline. So this attitude of “fulfilling your dreams,” and “try for the best” was inculcated in our family. There was a break in medical school between the third and fourth year of study and I needed to do something useful with this time. Options: I could get a summer job in a lab, (working with rat-based research) or in a store like most people. Well I had always told myself I will NEVER, EVER work with rats. Yick! I was determined that every precious moment was to be used wisely, filled with adventure, doing something “different.” Since much of my studying was done in a library, I would take a study break to sift through other books and magazines on the shelves for a diversion. One day in medical school, as a friend and I were talking, he mentioned something about an aero-medical service in Africa. That gave me an inspiration so while at the library I asked the librarian to look up “Aero-medical services in the world.” She came up with four. The research librarians are an incredibly supportive resource. To everyone I suggest, be curious, seek help from other people for information, and ask for help. Someone will help you. Persist and believe in your own goals.

When we are young, it’s easy to dream of what you might like to do, things you like, places you might want to go. But the question is HOW? It doesn’t matter if the exact means are yet lacking, just write down the things you want to do in life. Keep the ideas in an e-mail folder, text message, diary, book, Facebook. Most people get busy with training, work, family and don’t always have the time to accomplish everything they want to pursue. Just keep a record of what your dreams are and someday you might be able to do them, one by one. Sometime during your life, during a job change, company downsizing, divorce, old age, you will probably have a chance to develop each desire. You just might not...