INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN MEDICINE
THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES NECESSARY
I hold Medecins sans Frontieres in high esteem. It was founded in 1971 by Bernard Kouchner and a coterie of French doctors and intellectuals, the organization was to win a Nobel Prize later on. They are well known, Doctors without Borders in English, for their work in conflict zones and difficult areas of the world, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Ebola outbreak to give a small number of examples.
When I completed my medical studies, I had been certain for years that I will enter International Humanitarian Medicine. I wanted to combine it with my curiosity about cultural knowledge, thus I embarked on a personal voyage that is ongoing. I do not belong to any organization or group. I choose projects to donate my expertise to, and there is never a shortage. I have limited myself to the Indigenous peoples that affords a certain freedom of choice.
While I was a junior doctor in Melbourne, Australia as well as a post graduate doctor in the USA, I used to hear the admonition, you have to network, if you want to get ahead in your career. I realize that what they were trying to teach me was the situation: WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME ?
With a volunteer mentality, those words rang hollow until I met elders in Native American Indian reservations who became friends and teachers. They made it clear, in the indigenous way of thinking, Networking is exactly the opposite: WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU ?
If you wish to participate in any fashion in any sort of International Humanitarian Medicine, please understand this principle: Forget the selfish thought: WHAT CAN I GET OUT OF THIS ?
Reading about the doctors who had gone deep into the amazon and also reading fiction such as Saudade do Xingu by Moacyr Scliar and The story teller by Mario Vargas Llosa, you get the idea of what it takes to go and live with another culture who think very much differently than you do.
In Jamaica, in Colombia I come across starry eyed American college students, using with missionary enthusiasm, with Passion for what they want to do, so fully motivated by frivolity of their innocent ignorance without curiosity. They were always thinking of going home and the idea of a noble savage is not too far from their thoughts.
On my first visit to Tsumkwe in the Namibian Kalahari Desert, I came across a trio of American Peace Corps Volunteers, each clutching large bottles of Soft drinks, they were annoyed, when I answered their question, what do you do ? I do in your country, USA, what you are doing here.
I have meet lots of people who work in International Humanitarian Medicine, and all of them have certain quality in common : Intensity of what they wish to do and also a focus. You cannot work intensely if you do not live intensely. Before you come to the field, please give up the question: How can I profit from this adventure?
THE LAKOTA WARRIOR SITTING BULL (EL TORO SENTADO)
