Best of America: Disaster Doctor

This doctor turned his own hardships around by traveling the world to help others in the the wake of disaster.

More on:

• Inspiring Stories
• Amazing People
• Natural Disasters

My wife passed away seven and a half years ago, and I went through a huge depression, the worst time in my life. I was a bit suicidal. I continued to work as a small-town doctor at my medical clinic in Kilauea, Hawaii. My kids had gone to live on the mainland, and I was alone.

On a family trip, we turned on the TV and saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center. I said to my kids, "I'm going to Afghanistan." International Medical Corps sent me to set up 20 clinics in provinces where people had no health care. Eventually, the clinics were serving 27,000 patients a month. I had such a sense of accomplishment, a sense of purpose. My depression went completely away.

I go wherever disasters strike: Indonesia after the tsunami, Pakistan after the earthquake, Lebanon, Darfur, Iraq. I was just in Kenya. After their presidential election, at least a thousand people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. We set up mobile clinics in an area with 19,000 refugees. It was supposed to hold 13,000-max. Measles broke out, one of the biggest killers of kids in refugee camps, and it spread like wildfire. Water and sanitation were also issues.

When my wife passed away, I thought my life was done. But really, it was just getting started. At the end of her life, my wife fell into a coma. I held her head in my hands and told her of all the places we would visit, the exciting adventures we would have.

I think about this moment many times during my "adventures."

I did not know then how prophetic those words would be. She is with me still.

From Reader's Digest - June 2008

 

• Best Inventor
• This designer has created some of the most creative inventions of the year.
• 
• Best Inspiration
• A group of HIV-infected children halfway around the world inspire a woman to make a difference.
• 
• Best Dream Team
• Once weighed down by hard times, these five women moved on to improve their lives and become an inspiration to the youth of their community.
• 

A hearing-impaired person, I was on the phone with my brother, excitedly telling him about the cochlear ear implant I was getting. "I'm going to have a magnet implanted in my head as part of the procedure," I told him. He asked why, and I read him the technical explanation from a booklet.

"Oh," he said. "I thought it was to keep you from falling off the fridge."

-- Judith Levinton, Brooklyn, N.Y

Sponsored Links