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An insightful, inspiring and alarming look at Public Health, in some of the most remote, challenging, and impoverished areas of the world, through the eyes of a medical expert – one who is both a fearless advocate for first-hand patient care, as well as a tireless advocate for environmental awareness and enhanced governance.
As Dr. Lachie McIver, a native of Queensland, Australia, takes us though his incredible personal journey of self-discovery, service and study, we are invited to follow his path, beginning in his youth and winding a crazily intense trail through numerous rural placements in areas such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Thailand, Mumbai, Rajasthan, Peru, Guatemala, the Congo, Sudan, and the Honduras.
As he is introduced to the practice of “frontier medicine” in jungles, rainforests, and remote islands of the South Pacific, Dr. Lachie’s focus on the clinical treatment of tropical and other rampant infectious diseases, – such as leprosy, measles, TB and cholera – is quickly compounded with a plethora of public health concerns. It is not long before it is apparent that a link can clearly be drawn between the ‘slowly and steadily warming, acidifying and rising oceans” (an outcome of global climate change) and the subsequent contamination of drinking water, patterns of pathogen transmission, weather, poverty, crops and ultimately, disease outbreaks. The greater challenge for Dr Lachie, unfortunately, is how, in each unique and specifically devastated environment, to plan for any sort of coordinated health improvement.
Unable to resist diving in with both feet, Dr. Lachie’s life becomes a blur of rural postings and increasingly senior public health roles, in which he battles the mounting complexity and severe emotional burden of, in many cases, desperately intractable issues for which a solution exceeds both current control and funding – and the ongoing relief he is able to provide, no matter how individually effective, never feels adequate when viewed in the larger context.
Eventually settling (temporarily at least) into senior roles first at WHO, and later at MSF (Medecin sans Frontieres), it’s clear that for Dr. Lachie at least, (and to the inspiration of the reader) it is simply impossible, no matter the odds, to stop trying.
An eye-opening and devastatingly tragic read, and one that will stay with this reader for a very long time.
My stop today on the @randomttours #blogtour for #LifeandDeathDecisions published by @octopus_books and written by @Lachlan_Mciver
A great big thank you to the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
#Nonfiction #climateechange #publichealth #medicalmemoir
