Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement,

and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore.

Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer, Public Health on Call.

Today, a conversation about the historic floods in Pakistan, their consequences for millions

of people and their implications for our planet.

We hear from Dr. Rabika Fatima, a young doctor and aspiring general surgeon who's been volunteering

at medical relief camps. Interviewing Dr. Fatima is a Johns Hopkins public health student,

Balal Khan, who recently worked as an advisor to senior public health leaders in Pakistan.

Information about organizations working on the front lines in Pakistan is available in the show notes. Let's listen.

Dr. Ramika Fatma, thank you for joining us on public health on call today.

Hi, thank you for having me, extremely honored to be part of this podcast.

So, Pakistan has experienced the worst flooding in its history.

It has affected more than 33 million people in the country.

And you've been working as a medical relief provider.

We're interested to hear from you what have your experiences been when you visit these camps? And how has your

experiences deferred to your previous medical relief experiences in different settings as you

have worked in other countries as well? I have been working in these kind of medical camps in the past as well.

So before going, I prepared myself mentally of how things are going to eventually be there.

...