Immediate Response to Disasters

Abstract

Working as a surgeon for the NGOs of necessity involves going to areas of the world that are affected by conflict or catastrophe. Your phone goes off and you agree in principle to going on the mission, but you have to clear it with your family, colleagues, and the hospital managers. Shackles removed, the reality of the mission sets in. Apart from the work, risks from the environment and from warring parties are high on the agenda. Your job is well defined, and all the hard work involving negotiations between the parties for your safe travel have been performed by the local logistics and the headquarters staff of the organization you are working for. The most dangerous part of a mission is getting to and from the area. The well-marked vehicle you are traveling in should be given free passage, but you have to be aware that drug-and alcohol-fueled soldiers and bandits do not adhere to the rules. Being stopped at a checkpoint in the Congo and the barrel of a rifle pressed into my neck were defining moments in my life, and I was only saved by the patient in the back of the land cruiser whom I had operated upon because he was of a higher rank than the crazed guard.