Synopses & Reviews
A doctor grapples with the challenges of mother and child health in the developing world.
Recounting medical missions in half of the thirty countries in which she has worked for the past twenty-five years in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific - from Darfur in Sudan to Papua New Guinea and Bhutan - Dr. Gretchen Roedde shares the grim reality of world politics and bureaucratic red tape on the front lines as a doctor in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS.
A Doctor's Quest
Review
This fine book demands, and deserves, slow and appreciative reading.
Isabel Huggan, author of Belonging: Home Away from Home
Review
A Doctor's Quest offers a roller-coaster ride on a voyage into far-flung and sometimes dangerous territory, with thrills, spills, and occasional joy along the way. Olive Senior, author of Dancing Lessons, Working Miracles: Women's Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean, and Over the Roofs of the World
Review
A Doctor's Quest speaks in the voice of birthing women from the rural regions of 15 of the poorest countries around the world. Their tales of bravery in the face of delivering without trained birth attendants and the joys and the complications that occur are the substance of the book. Weave in the public health perspective on interrelated themes of literacy, contraception, health care delivery, rural health work shortage, social disruptions, sexual violence, inefficient health care systems and corruption, and the book becomes a compelling treatise on maternal health. Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine
Review
A Doctor's Quest is an engaging and well-written and sometimes even humorous read that offers DFATD employees a different perspective on the challenges faced by health care workers trying to make a difference in the MNCH field. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFATD) newsletter
Synopsis
Dr. Gretchen Roedde tells the stories of the hopes of village women in the developing world struggling to give birth safely. A Doctor's Quest
Synopsis
Recounting medical missions in half of the thirty countries in which she has worked for the past twenty-five years in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific - from Darfur in Sudan to Papua New Guinea and Bhutan - Dr. Gretchen Roedde shares the grim reality of world politics and bureaucratic red tape on the front lines as a doctor in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS.
A Doctor's Quest
About the Author
Gretchen Roedde has worked as a public health doctor in nearly thirty countries in the developing world for the past quarter-century, specializing in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS. She worked for the United Nations Population Fund in Ghana and Papua New Guinea to assess and promote progress in maternal health and has also been involved in projects for UNICEF in Botswana, World Vision in Bangladesh, and Rotary International in Malawi. Dr. Roedde lives in Haileybury, Ontario.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Beginnings
Chapter One – I am Poor
(Uganda, Sudan)
Chapter Two – I Do Not Have the Freedom That You Have as a Woman
(Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana)
Chapter Three – One Day My Child Was Playing, the Next Day He Had Died
(Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia)
Chapter Four – I Have No Education
(China, Botswana, Uganda)
Chapter Five – Why are Women Dying, Giving Life?
(Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Zambia, Tanzania, Papua
New Guinea)
Chapter Six – I am Tired of Seeing HIV as the Price of Wealth
(Tanzania, Papua New Guinea)
Chapter Seven – Where Are Our Leaders? Why Have They Forgotten Us?
(Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Global)
Chapter Eight – We Are Still Waiting
(Bangladesh)
Endings
(Papua New Guinea)
White Mud Letter to a Dear Friend
(Papua New Guinea)
Timeline
Author’s Biography