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This is 4:16 long.
Amb: paper shuffling (bring up sound of paper shuffling and dip under track).
Narr 1: Dr. Sara Lorenz looks through a pile of papers searching for a diagram of the human body.
Amb: (bring up paper shuffling into dialogue.) Do you guys have any of the sheets with any of the body parts? Yeah yeah sure…body parts over here, measuring tape over there… (Dip under track.)
Narr 2: Lorenz will use the diagram to help a man who's sitting in the next room. He's from Bangladesh and claims he was tortured. The man refuses to be interviewed by the media because he fears for his safety if his story is made public. A few weeks from now, his lawyer will have to prove his claims of torture in front of a judge. It won't be easy. Last year, less than a quarter of those who claimed they were tortured were ultimately granted legal status in the United States. The lawyer of the man from Bangladesh hopes that doctors at this clinic will provide him with medical proof that support his claims. As Lorenz prepares to examine the man's scars, she admits she feels uneasy.
Ax 1: Honestly, I get a little anxious before I meet the client, just b/c I don't know how they are going to emotionally respond, or how I am going to respond to it.
Narr 3: The Doctors of the World Clinic is the only clinic of its kind in the United States. Here clinic asylum seekers are evaluated by two or three doctors in a private and respectful setting. But in many other cases, asylum seekers are evaluated in detention centers where the conditions are less than optimal. The Bangladeshi man says he was severely beaten back home because he rallied against the government. But his testimony lacks particulars.
The clinic's medical director Eva Metalios, (Eee-vah Meh-tah-Lee-ohss), meets with Lorenz after the exam gets underway. This is Lorenz's second asylee patient, so Metalios reminds her what she needs to do in the course of the three-hour exam.
Ax 2: Be with him and bear witness to his story and get a better sense his narrative and be able to facilitate the discussion of his experience if he appears credible to write an affidavit that is true to his story and also gives them painfully important details that are important for a legal documents. Ok.
Narr 4: Lorenz resumes the conversation with her patient. He reveals more about the abuse he endured. He tells Lorenz that he was taken into custody by Bangledeshi police. And during his incarceration, he was twice taken from his cell and brought to a room where he was tortured. But it didn't end there. Lorenz says the police arrived another time and things got even worse.
Ax 4: This time they had really large heavy about 3 feet long and they beat him with the sticks and kicked him in the left ribs especially that's where he has chronic pain to this day.
Narr 5: Doctors of the World relies on private and public donors. Volunteer doctors evaluate the effects of torture and write affidavits on behalf of their clients. Lorenz has been taught by staff how to identify the emotional and physical wounds that torture victims tend to carry with them. Today, she glides her hand along the man's chest and rib cage.
Ax: His rib cage kind of pops up on the left side; and I can feel like the bone is harder underneath there I think, it feels like a bone that was broken and then re-healed. Ok.
Narr 6: Lorenz's affidavit will focus on the extent of the rib injury. His freedom could be granted or withheld based on this evaluation. Because of its importance, Metalios, the director, goes to see the wound for herself.
(Footsteps fade up then dip under track.)
Minutes later she returns with a gruesome diagnosis. His broken ribs healed as two bony deformities that are each about the size of a whiteboard eraser. She says the wound is consistent with the man's story of abuse.
Ax: It clearly hangs together and it's strong enough and I think we can write a pretty strong description of that mass you can see it from across the room. It's huge.
Narr 7: Recounting stories of torture can be painful for the patient and the doctor. Lorenz confesses that documenting the man's physical and emotional trauma was draining.
Ax: I just wish I could make it all better for him; so I definitely had a very empathetic response to him.
Narr: As Lorenz's patient leaves, he tells her that he hadn't shared his complete story with anyone since leaving Bangladesh. The two will probably never see one another again. But their brief encounter today is now documented forever, in the form of a roadmap of the human body. It will reveal for a judge, in painstaking and methodical detail, the abuse that one man endured. And it may ultimately transform this asylum seeker into lawful resident of the United States.
Tania Haas, Columbia Radio News.