By Kristy Demas ('89)

Sheri Fink ('90) eases human suffering by providing and writing about humanitarian aid.

Sheri Fink has a medical degree, but she doesn’t practice medicine. Instead, she has been an aid worker and investigative journalist who has crossed the border into Iraq to bring lifesaving medicine to kids suffering from black fever. She has also written the critically acclaimed book War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (Public Affairs, 2003). Fink uses her knowledge about relief work and medicine to directly help people affected by disasters and to bring attention to human suffering across the globe.

“All of humanity is linked,” Fink says. “As the field of humanitarian assistance develops, there is an effort to devise ways to do better at doing good.”

Fink is currently employed at ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom, where she reports on events that spur the need for humanitarian aid. From hurricane Gustav to Iraqi refugees, Fink uses her articles to explain what society can learn from disasters and injustices, and how to improve moving forward.

Growing up in suburban Michigan, Fink never dreamed she would find herself in volatile situations like researching hospital care in post-war Bosnia. As an undergraduate at U-M, she was in the Honors Program and majored in psychology with the ultimate goal of becoming a doctor.

Fink received her Ph.D. and M.D. from Stanford University in 1998 and 1999, respectively. During her time at Stanford, one of Fink’s professors casually remarked that the notion of genocide couldn’t cause feelings of distress to those not responsible for it. This remark resonated with Fink who called her professor on it after the lecture. She had launched a student organization against genocide in 1993 in response to the wars in the Balkans. In 1997, she attended a conference in Bosnia to learn about medical care in times of war. It was the first of many times her research and aid work would take her to war-torn areas, as she began to see firsthand the devastation and need that war, natural disasters, and disease could create.

Today, in her role at ProPublica, Fink writes about public health and humanitarian issues. She recently investigated how Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans cared for patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a story co-published with the New York Times Magazine (“Deadly Choices at Memorial Medical Center”). With her medical degree and extensive experiences investigating and providing relief in disaster-hit areas, Fink is uniquely qualified to tell stories like these as well as to analyze what went wrong and how to avoid future mistakes.

“I’m lucky to have this job,” she says. “My bosses here trust me to write about what is important to me. I am grateful to have the opportunity and flexibility to write about issues I care about.

“My ultimate hope for the future is that there will one day be no need for humanitarian aid work, but I know that isn’t realistic. So my next hope would be that the next generation of students takes up the effort to improve aid, and that they in turn mentor others to continue this legacy of helping others.”

 

Sheri Fink is one of four alumni honored with a 2009 LSA Humanitarian Service Award, given for noble character, citizenship, and service to humanity. Read about award-winner Laura Lederer (’75), and watch for more stories of humanitarian service in the next edition of the LSA Wire.

 

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