Main description:

For more than fifty years, Dr. Cahill has been helping to heal the world, as a leading specialist in tropical medicine and as a driving force in humanitarian assistance and relief efforts around the globe. In this revised and expanded edition, he chronicles extraordinary achievements of compassion and commitment. Bringing together a rich selection of writings, he crafts a fascinating memoir of a life devoted to others. The book includes front-line reports from places under siege-Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Gaza, and Ireland; there are also visionary essays from the origins of the AIDS epidemic and landmine crises, and no less passionate concerns of his own experiences of pain and suffering-as well as of joy and beauty-in the worlds in which he has traveled. As the distinguished neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, M.D., notes in his endorsement, "These essays, by turns elegiac, lyrical, funny, tender, nostalgic, and vehemently impassioned, come together in an ongoing tapestry, a portrait of a dedicated physician who has dared to make a difference."

Contents:

Part One: Locations 15 The Middle East 18 Beirut's Smell of Death 19 A Doctor's Reflections on the Libyan Situation 21 Gaza--Destruction and Hope 23 Somalia 32 For a U.S. Role in Somalia 33 Palm Sunday in Somalia 34 Starving Refugees Overwhelm Somalia 36 A Somali Postscript 39 Nicaragua 44 The Nicaraguan Earthquake 45 The Price for Differing with the U.S. Is Death 48 Of Constitutions, Democracy, Medicine, and Diplomacy 50 Holidays in Nicaragua 53 Fasting and Medicine in Nicaragua 56 Ireland 60 A Perverse Silence 61 Red Stains on the Emerald Isle: Can Only Blood Wash Them Out? 64 A Deathless Dream 67 The Descendants of the High Kings of Ireland 71 Part Two: Academia 75 New Realities, New Frontiers 78 The Peculiar Elan 83 The University and Revolution 87 The Symbolism of Salamanca 91 Grief and Renewal 98 To Bind our Wounds 100 Loaded Words 107 Dreams and Travel 112 A Necessary Balance 113 A Dublin Department 120 Is That All There Is? 123 Part Three: Continuity 128 Health on the Horn of Africa 132 The Untapped Resource 138 Irish Essays 142 Threads for a Tapestry 145 Famine 150 The AIDS Epidemic 151 A Bridge to Peace 154 Imminent Peril 155 A Framework for Survival 158 Clearing the Fields 172 Preventive Diplomacy 177 Traditions, Values, and Humanitarian Action 186 Technology for Humanitarian Action 189 The Pulse of Humanitarian Assistance 190 Even in Chaos 192 More With Less 194 Books by Kevin M. Cahill, M.D. cited in this Section 198 Part Four: Personal 203 God and My Life 204 The Influence of Yeats 208 On Being Short 226 Suffering and Pain 227 A Medical Student's Impressions of India 229 It Ain't Necessarily So 230 Romance and Reality 234 To Bear Witness 246 "For Your 65th" by Kathryn Cahill 250