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A doctor here will receive the UCLA Women’s Veteran of the Year Award March 1 for spearheading a project to help physicians in Iraq.

What began with a simple question from Maj. Laura Pacha, a doctor who was serving at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, turned into a noble cause and purpose, said Valerie Walker, UCLA Medical Alumni Association director.

While talking with Iraqi physicians during her deployment from August 2006 to October, Pacha, who is now chief of the Department of Preventive Medicine, learned that Iraq’s medical system was very isolated because of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“Health care … is definitely lacking for the Iraqis, so anything we can do to help restore their ability to secure those basic needs is … key … to their restoration efforts,” she said.

Pacha, a UCLA alumnus, contacted Walker and asked for medical text donations.

“I thought … maybe people could send books, and I might get a carton or so, which would be really nice,” Pacha said.

Because of Walker’s enthusiasm and interest in the program, which was named Books Without Borders, more than 2,000 medical texts, journals and reference materials were shipped in September to the Tikrit Teaching Hospital and other medical facilities in Northern Iraq.

Walker said she received an e-mail in January from Dr. Brad Volk, a U.S. Naval medical officer stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan, requesting medical materials for Kabul Medical University.

Because the BWB infrastructure was in place, medical materials have already been sent.

“From its inception, BWB has been a labor of love,” Walker said. “These medical materials will have a profound effect on the Iraqi and Afghan people long after the American troops withdraw.”

Pacha was nominated for the recently created UCLA Women’s Veteran of the Year Award by Lt. Col. Christopher Talcott, UCLA Military Science chairman, who said in the past they honored men.

“She is a great role model for our female youth, and I personally hope that young females look to her as someone that they would like to emulate,” he said.

Talcott said Pacha’s program was “an incredible opportunity to have our future Army officers involved in a real-world mission supporting U.S. Soldiers in Iraq.”

Additionally, Talcott said, it was a great opportunity to educate the campus and local Los Angeles communities about the things that Soldiers and leaders are accomplishing in Iraq.

Pacha said she was completely overwhelmed when she was notified of the award, because all she did was ask people to donate books.

“But summarily, I was overwhelmed by the support that my question garnered, and the outcome was amazing,” Pacha said.

The program’s scope and significance will be expanded to include more Iraqi and Afghan medical schools and hospitals by recruiting other U.S. medical schools and hospitals to “adopt” Iraqi institutions, Walker said.

Providence Medical Center in Burbank, Calif., has already committed to adopting Kabul Medical University, and other U.S. medical schools have been contacted about involvement in the program.

For more information about UCLA’s Books Without Borders, visit www.medalumni.ucla.edu/index.shtml.