Gifts from the Poor: What the World's Patients Taught One Doctor about Healing

Surgeon, teacher, and medical volunteer Geelhoed thrives on international missions most others avoid%E2%80%94situations a colleague described as fraught with "feeble capacity, extremely limited resources, a very tiny cadre of dedicated people against overwhelming odds." In his inspiring as-told-to chronicle of courage and hope (with extensive excerpts from his notes), the intrepid doctor takes readers along on his extraordinary missions in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and Central and South America. Biography and medical adventure are stitched together as Geelhoed recollects incidents like the night he sang his way through a blackout while continuing to do surgery. Neff emerges as a saint with feet of clay: a messy divorce and anguished child-custody feud haunt him, and a paper, published in Nutrition, arguing that hypothyroidism conferred adaptive advantages and thus should go untreated%E2%80%94sparked a major medical ethics debate. But Geelhoed's commitment to aiding the world's neediest should inspire not just idealistic youth but even jaded veterans who may have forgotten why they chose the healing arts in the first place. 16 pages of color photos; b&w photos. (May)