Year: 1984 Setting: Branch of the St. Francis Hospital Position: Private general practitioner The waiting room is packed and I am busy with a patient …
Category: Global health
Fatal consequences of jet lag
Year: 1994 Setting: Brisbane airport, Australia Position: Chief medical officer for Chevron in Papua New Guinea It had been a long flight for a Chevron …
Dramatic new film on Kristof's search for social change
Last night I previewed a new HBO documentary, Reporter, in which New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof takes viewers on an astonishing journey in his …
Expatriate woes in Singapore
Year: 2002 Setting: Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore Position: Private general practitioner I am the first and only French private general practitioner in Singapore. I discovered years …
Attack in a national park
Year: 1995 Setting: Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Position: Chief medical officer for Chevron Oil Co. I have been in PNG for two years, seen …
Aescupalian snake?
Year: 1980 Setting: Corporate clinic in Edea, Cameroon Position: Resident physician On some of my professional gear, one can find the medical symbol with the …
The price of life
The value placed on medical activity is society-specific and highly situational. It varies greatly with time, place and human environment.
The value placed on medical activity is society-specific and highly situational. It varies greatly with time, place and human environment.
We are the world, we are the people
Year: 1984 Setting: Ouesso, Congo Position: Timber consortium medical expert We landed in Brazzaville and took a private jet to Pointe Noire where we spent …
Experiencing Chinese medicine in Africa
Year: 1984 Setting: Lome, Togo Position: Private practitioner at the branch of the St. Francis Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria In the consultation room on Ikoyi …
Riders for Health partners with Stanford business school
Over the past two decades, British nonprofit Riders for Health has been working to reduce the number of deaths in Africa from treatable diseases by …
Are you fit to travel?
Year: 1985 Setting: Bottom of the pyramid of Keops, Egypt Position: Emergency medicine physician for a French multinational company The flight from Paris was uneventful …
Voodoo doll?
Year: 1983 Setting: Branch of the St Francis hospital in Lagos, Nigeria Position: Private general practitioner The air conditioner roars and rattles, and the waiting …
Know your enemy!
Year: 2003 Setting: AsiaMedic clinic in Singapore Position: Private general practitioner SARS has struck Singapore and I am at the vortex of the epidemic frenzy. …
What is the weakest link?
Year: 1981 Setting: Club Med in Haiti Position: Tropical disease specialist at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris Club Med is experiencing an outbreak of acute …
Practicing low-tech medicine in Africa
Patients at Mulago Hospital in Uganda are entitled to receive only one thing: a thin mattress. Everything else -- meals, fresh clothes, sheets, blankets -- …
Thinking out of the box
Year: 1982 Setting: Ouesso hospital, Northern Congo Position: Medical expert on a timber consortium mission It has been quite an adventure riding for three days …