Editorial

Love Thy Neighbor

Deval (Reshma) PaRanjPe, mD, mBa, FaCs

ost of us have been glued to the news recently, stunned and horrified by the Russian M invasion of Ukraine. The news is full of images of death and destruction, of fleeing refugees huddled under bridges and desperate to take the last trains out of the country. If you decolorize the images, they eerily resemble images of WWII that are seared into the minds of many adults.

As Mark Twain famously pointed out, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

The people impacted by this conflict are just like people you know. In fact, they may be people you know. The young CFO of a Silicon Valley tech startup and her teenage children are among the victims of Russian mortar fire, memorialized in a photograph splashed across the internet. Physicians are finding themselves under fire as hospitals are bombed. Office workers and baristas, ballet dancers and beauty queens—an unlikely cross section of society has united in taking up arms to defend their homeland. Women and children and the elderly are struggling to escape, often without adequate food, medicine, clothing or shelter.

Innocent children are being emotionally and physically traumatized by war in a way that dwarfs our peacetime first world problems of “the kids are behind a whole year because they had to learn online because of the pandemic” and “my kid missed his prom and graduation and the dorm experience freshman year of college.”

How can kids learn when bombs are falling around them? How will the psyches and bodies of these Ukrainian children be scarred, and how will they ever recover? How do you explain their pain and fear to your own children?

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. The first three clear the way for the last. So far, we have war and pestilence. War creates famine where it would not otherwise exist, and that will undoubtedly be next in the news cycle as refugees struggle to find assistance and those left behind in Ukraine suffer untold deprivations.

Our beloved Pittsburgh icon Mr. Rogers told us as children that we should always “look for the helpers.” As adults, it is our job to be the helpers that children can look to for comfort. As physicians, it is our job to be the helpers that adults can look to for comfort.

What can one person far away do to help?

You can educate yourself and study the history of the region and its conflicts with your family.

You can be grateful that you are not in the same situation, for all that separates us from refugees of any stripe is luck—and an accident of birth counts as luck.

You can open your heart to the Ukrainian people, while also opening your heart to the humanity of the Russian people---so many are aghast at what their leadership is doing and are protesting in the streets at great peril to themselves and their loved ones.

You can hold your children close while you watch the news together and explain it to them. This may help you regain a sense of perspective regarding your own problems and will help your children develop a sense of perspective in life. “At least I have peace of mind that my neighborhood will not be shelled and I will not be shot. I have food, a roof over my head, clean clothes, medicine, freedom, and hope. There are people elsewhere just like me who do not, through no fault of their own.” And then it is a small but logical leap to realize that there are

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children and adults in our own country who are hungry, homeless, or live with the real threat of violence. Food insecurity, experiencing homelessness, school shootings, gun violence: these exist even without war, but war compounds their misery.

While watching the news 24/7 may be too traumatic, sheltering ourselves and our children completely from it prevents us from learning valuable lessons. If we don’t know or learn from history we are doomed to repeat it, and history is happening all around us. The images on the internet teach us a lot. This is what terror looks like. This is what real patriotism looks like. This is what bravery looks like. This is what selflessness looks like. This is what real charity looks like. This is what real gratitude looks like. This is what fear looks like. This is what real desperation looks like. This is what hopelessness looks like. Look! This is what helpers look like.

Strangers helping strangers is the phenomenon that makes any of this survivable or bearable. Here is a wake-up call for the people of the world to rediscover and affirm our humanity towards each other. It is a clarion call to step away from the video games and disconnected society and engage with each other. We must change. We must be better. We must care about each other. We must love our neighbors

as ourselves. What can one person do, in a tangible way?

Donate. Welcome Ukrainian refugees, for many will undoubtedly be headed to the US in the days ahead.

1. Brother’s Brother Foundation (with Eden Hall Foundation,

Highmark/AHN, the Pittsburgh

Technology Council, Giant Eagle and others), is helping to provide supplies for those still in in Ukraine as well as to over 1.5 million refugees who have migrated to

Poland and Romania. Visit www. brothersbrother.org and click

Ukraine Relief on the donations page. Checks payable to Brother’s

Brother Foundation can be sent to

P.O. Box 645934, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-5257; note “Ukraine Relief” on the memo line.

2. The United Way of

Southwestern Pennsylvania and The Pittsburgh Foundation

are sponsoring a joint program #PghUnitedforUkraine. To donate visit www.uwswpa.org 3. Nataliya European Food

Market, 4370 Murray Ave.,

Greenfield; and Sts. Peter &

Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 220 Mansfield Blvd., Carnegie; are collecting hand warmers; feminine hygiene products, diapers, baby bottles and formula; non-perishable snacks; socks and gloves for men; and other items. Call 412-421-2380 or 412-279-2111.

4. UNICEF https://www.unicef.org/ ukraine/en because over half a million Ukrainian children have become refugees. 5. Red Cross: https://www.icrc.org/ en/donate/ukraine

6. Caritas Poland (largest Polish

Catholic Charity): https://caritas. pl/ukraine 7. Polish Good Initiatives

Foundation: https://www.fdi.org. pl/zbiorkadlaukrainy 8. Doctors Without Borders

Emergency Relief Fund

www.doctorswithoutborders.org

The opinion expressed in this column is that of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board, the Bulletin, or the Allegheny County Medical Society.

is the term for the long Bengali tradition of stimulating intellectual discourse with friends over tea and coffee. Here’s your Editorialchance to try the art of Adda, with a selection of fine teas and coffees.

Three Bakery Square delights:

AVP, Bakery Square, 6425 Penn Ave., East Liberty

Fans of Big Burrito’s Alta Via pizza in Fox Chapel can venture to Bakery Square to try the casual California style Italian cuisine of its cousin, AVP. Enjoy seasonal vegetable-forward dishes as well as pizzas and sandwiches for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

täkō, Bakery Square, 6425 Penn Ave., East Liberty

Love the downtown Richard DeShantz jewel of a restaurant called täkō, but can’t get a reservation in the crowded space? Come enjoy its vast Bakery Square outpost, complete with 5000 square feet of space and both indoor and outdoor dining.

Galley – Bakery Square, 6425 Penn Ave., East Liberty

Galley – Bakery Square is the

Square Drive, South Side

Craving fried green tomatoes, buttermilk biscuits, shrimp and grits and banana pudding – and oh yes, fried chicken and waffles? Tupelo Honey Café will open this fall in Station Square to remedy that, in style.

Con Alma Downtown, 613 Penn Ave., Downtown

The new jewel of the Downtown Cultural District features insanely good Miami/Latin/Caribbean cuisine along with live jazz.

Gaucho Parrilla Argentina, 146 Sixth St., Downtown

The resident jewel of the Downtown Cultural District dazzles with an incredible array of steaks and wood fired meats with a variety of sauces and accompaniments. Takeout and dine-in available.

Wild Child, 372 Butler St., Etna

The brainchild of Chef Jamilka Borges, Wild Child emphasizes coastal and island cuisine and is sure to delight.

Mount Oliver Bodega, 225 Brownsville Road, Mt. Oliver

with creative food and cocktails. Coming in the fall.

And finally …

Chengdu Gourmet, McKnight Road, Ross Township

Chengdu Gourmet (the beloved James Beard-nominated Squirrel Hill hole-in-the-wall Sichuan restaurant that regularly inspires pilgrimages from all over Western PA) is planning an outpost on McKnight Road at the site of the former Oriental Market, in the plaza next to Red Lobster. This will offer a much larger dining space – 6,000 square feet – and an expanded dining menu. Something to look forward to in early 2022.

Enjoy, and be safe.

Dr. Paranjpe is an ophthalmologist and medical editor of the ACMS Bulletin. She can be reached at reshma_paranjpe@hotmail.com.

The opinion expressed in this column is that of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board, the Bulletin, or the Allegheny County Medical Society.

Improving Healthcare through Education, Service, and Physician Well-Being.

ACMS Bulletin / August 2021

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