Description
Book SynopsisFor 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 chronicle
Trade Review"Dr. Cahill makes a powerful argument that humanitarian action and preventive diplomacy are far better prescriptions for peace than military intervention. He writes not as an academic or think tank pundit but as a physician who has been tending patients on the front lines of misery for over half a century. To Bear Witness is an important contribution to the search for a less violent 21st century." -- -Michael J. O'Neill Past President, American Society of Newspaper Editors "It would be difficult for a biographer to weave together the many strands in the remarkable life of Kevin Cahill...He has practiced as a physician in the most impoverished, strife-torn, disease-ravaged parts of the world, and devoted much of his life (and considerable powers of persuasion) to humanitarian causes all over the globe. These essays, by turn 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." -- -Oliver Sacks M.D. "Humanitarian affairs as a subject of intellectual study, and in the creation of practical policies, has emerged over the last two decades as one of the key issues in international politics. In this evolution Kevin Cahill has made, and continues to make, a very important contribution. A notable humanitarian, he draws from his personal devotion to patients, his worldwide knowledge of medicine, his skills as a health administrator, and his scholarship, writings and love of literature." -- -Lord David Owen Former Foreign Minister, United Kingdom
Table of ContentsPart 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
