Synopses & Reviews
For 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 chronicles extraordinary achievements of compassion and commitment. Bringing together a rich selection of writings, he crafts a fascinating memoir of a life devoted to others. The book includes front-line reports from places under siege Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Gaza, and Ireland; there are also visionary essays from the origins of the AIDS epidemic and landmine crises, and no less passionate concerns of his own experiences of pain and suffering as well as of joy and beauty in the worlds in which he has traveled. As the distinguished neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, M.D., notes in his endorsement, "These essays, by turns 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."
Review
"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, diseaseravaged 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.
"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, Former President, American Society of Newspaper Editors
"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
About the Author
Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., is the author and editor of many books, including, most recently, History and Hope: The International Humanitarian Reader (Fordham). He is University Professor and Director of Fordham University's Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs and Clinical Professor of Tropical Medicine and Molecular Parasitology at New York University and has served as Chief Adviser on Humanitarian Affairs and Public Health for three Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly.
Table of Contents
Part 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 Élan 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