04-JAN-B-2
THE CORRESPONDENCE THAT SETS UP A FULL
AFRICAN SURGICAL EXPEDITION TO
SOMALILAND
AND TO ETHIOPIA,
AS I RESPOND TO THE GENEROUS AND KIND
WORDS
OF ONE CROSKERY, WHILE WAITING TO HEAR
FROM ANOTHER
Dear Robert;
Thank you so very much for
your kind reply. If only I could find an
agent or rep as enthusiastic as you are, I would not have the completed books
languishing on a defunct publisher’s warehouse floor! Or, maybe I have!
THE
BOOKS
You had asked to have a
supply of “Out of Assa” (“OOA”) to send them around and maybe bring one to
the attention of a publisher who might be able to do it right. What a superb idea—and, I am going to send
you (typically) more than you had asked for!
A package will be arriving shortly, and you will have more copies of
“OOA” than you might need to forward to whomever you think appropriate. I thank you very much for this help to me, so
I will not need to hear more about charging you for your help!
I had sent to Bev
previously an outline of “YOF” (“The Year of Fulbrightness”)
and had sent to you the first and last chapters of the section dealing with my
experiences in Mozambique, the first part of the Fulbright experience in
“darkest Africa.” I will try to make
that easier by sending you hard copies of these pieces. I had assembled similar materials for HH:STMMAROW (“A Himalayan High: A Series of Treks and
Medical Missions Along the Roof of the World”) if anyone might be
interested in looking over a similar package on these experiences.
THE
CUMBERLAND EXPERIENCE
The Cumberland Island
retreat was perfectly, poignantly beautiful.
It is a lot like life—it is an irreversible, irretrievable walk back
into an ephemeral pristine wilderness that is about to be preserved without the
easy access and amenities that I am, for a brief unique moment, privileged to
enjoy as a “Retained Rights” patron before the Carnegie leases expire. The whole island is turned over to the NPS,
and the northern two-thirds will be excluded from access under wilderness
regulations. These would include no
amenities like water, electrical power, and particularly not the features of a
road with our unique private vehicle entitled to access the interior
wilderness. For this moment, which I had
tried to explain to Virginia about our planned retreat into this wonderful
Spanish Moss-draped live oaks and palmettos, I can enjoy the primitive, while
having the use of the luxurious, before the lease is up and the wilderness
regulations make work out of getting a glimpse of what we can enjoy with glorious
ease.
I went to the Greyfield Inn at which I had
booked a dinner with Virginia, and bought the National Public Television video
on Cumberland which will explain it all.
If you could see the video, which I will try to make available to
Virginia if and when she calls again, you will appreciate the unique slice of
life that this Island inspires. I had
sent you an electronic copy of the 01-Cumberland excursion which I had thought
quite remarkable for its natural history unique experience, which distracted me
from worries over which I could have no control; I will send you a hard copy of
that singular experience, along with an attachment of this year’s visit, which
was a good gathering of a group which was one half first-timers, each enchanted
with the island experience. In the brief
window remaining before I will not have privileged access, I hope to organize a
retreat for a family group—within striking range of the Carolina Croskerys as
well. Do you think we should dare make
hopeful plans?
With the rapidly finishing
interior of Derwood, and a new target date of March 1 for walk-through and
moving in with the all new furnishings arriving, you might have a “half-way
house” enroute to Cumberland, which is an easy 12-hour 731 mile drive from
Derwood to Fernandina Beach where the Lucy Ferguson docks. It would be
even smoother to stop half way at your Carolina condo or your son’s in
Greenville where you had enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday.
THE
TRIPS
I very much appreciate your
kind comments about what it is that I do and a few of the reasons why I might
do it. To tell you of the plans I had
suspended awaiting the healing interlude and the changes of heart and
uncertainties of mind that have been disturbing Virginia, I will have to move
forward on a few of them now, since several fields await 2004 itineraries,
usually all committed by this time of year.
Just today, I combined two requests in Africa, reluctantly declined
two—in repeat favorite spots in Malawi (which you have seen) and Mindanao
(which has expanded now to include not only Leyte but also Palowan)—and put on
hold seven repeat trips in Northern India and Nepal.
Just today I have met with
the University Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs, Skip Williams (a
former student and resident, who is also anesthesiologist) who advised that the
US State Department is about to Ban travel to Haiti, beyond the “travel
advisory” they had issued last year, since Civil War is about to break
out. This cancels our planned trip March
8—15 to operate in Cange Hospital and the Thumonde Clinics again this year in a
trip planned to coincide with the GWU’s Spring Vacation for medical
underclassmen. A full back-up plan is in
place (see below) for this time period in a promise for a surgical excursion to
Honduras along the Nicaraguan border in a rural hospital to which we will have
to carry our own supplies to set up the postponed surgical mission in a
Spanish-speaking environment, in service to indigenous people, some of whom may
not even have access to the Spanish lingua
franca.
INTO
AFRICA
I had been asked to help
found the new medical school and surgery program in Gonder Ethiopia, and had
filed away plans for the future after the Dean and several faculty met with me
in Washington several years back. I had
introduced them to our then-dean of the GWU Medical School, and Vice President
for Health Affairs (a title that covers the new school of Public Health as
well), Skip Williams. I helped one of
the applicants into our new MPH program, Emiru Hailu, whom I had met when he
came forward after I had given a Grand Rounds at Howard University. My topic at that time was building
opportunity for developing nations abroad, and he is now employed in the
Fairfax County Public Health department, and remains eager to assist the
Ethiopian medical college of his origin. The Gonder school is now up and running and
the requests have been repeated more urgently.
It should not take too much
of a push for me to get up into the Highlands, since I have been eager to
explore the Lake Tana origins of the magnificent canyons that are the origins
of the Blue Nile. Since I have
previously explored the White Nile as it emerges from Lake Victoria and its
waterways clogged with Nile Cabbages and Hippos, I have been keen to do the same
for the Blue Nile. The White and Blue
Niles meet at Khartoum, Sudan but do not mix until twenty kilometers downstream
at Ondurman—each names that you may recall from General Gordon, or the books by
Alan Moorehead. From Herodotus on down,
the mysterious origins of the Nile that gave life to Egypt and early
civilization from its consistent flooding had driven many intrepid explorers
into the interior of Africa, from which none returned until the Burton and
Speke expedition, when Sir Richard Burton—linguist adventurer extraordinaire
(“Ruenzori”—the “Mountains of the Moon”) discovered, and Speke illicitly
reported, the origin of the Nile in a Great Lake that Burton named for his
queen, Victoria. I can now complete the
puzzle by the Ethiopian Highland exploration that is high enough to catch the
Indian Ocean tradewinds that dump the rain that gives the cyclic inundation of
the Egyptian Nile through the roaring chasms of the Blue Nile.
Ethiopia, governed from its
capital in Addis Ababa, has had a long civil war that resulted in a new nation
along the lowland coast of the Red Sea, Eritrea, and its capital Asmara. I am a member of the Eritrean Medical
Association, and have helped a few folk in assisting Eritrean medical programs,
through a surgeon Hailie Mezghebe, again at Howard, and through three GWU
students for whom I arranged an experience in Asmara. I also helped a pair of
Fulbrighters who were headed to Eritrea.
This new 52nd African
nation is the newest in the African geography atlas, and was split by ethnic,
religious and economic differences with the highlanders. The rain-rich highlands are capable of
feeding all of Africa, but the political differences had the Addis Ethiopians
using the drought-famines of the desert lowlands as a weapon to starve out the
opposition, which made them secede and fight for their new nation.
Hold that thought, since I
am now going to move to the Horn of Africa.
Now, in almost exactly the
same model, the area formerly known as British Somaliland along the Red Sea
Coast of the Horn Of Africa just before the Straits of Hormuz, has had a long
civil war with the Moslem Somalis of the nation of Somalia. Somalia was a former Italian colony (as was
part of Ethiopia—which is why the “African campaigns” of WW II had Rommel and Montgomery
chasing each other in the desert sands, and why the Fascist Italian colonies
were stripped and made into UN protectorates after WW II.) When the UN protectorate ended, and Somalia
became independent on 1/7/1960, the former British Somaliland was joined in to make
this new fractious state of Somalia, almost immediately at Civil War in 1961. This is a carbon copy of the merging of
disparate groups into single “nation-states” like Sudan, in the continent of
Africa which has never known a central government of a nation state, but only
the power of a clan leaders and tribalism, which can rip up any synthetic
political or geographic lines demarcating a “country.”
The long reign of warlord Siyad Barre of
Somalia (with whom the US had become quite familiar, as you might remember from
“Blackhawk Down” and the US Marines’ visit to Somalia with night vision goggles
blurred by klieg lights from international news media as they hit the beach
from Zodiacs in their Mogadishu invasion) came to an end in the northern
coastal part of the accessioned Somalia now called Somaliland (the former
British Somaliland) on May 18, 1991 when Siyad Barre was distracted by US
invasion from his rape and pillage by his clans of his poorer northern less-Moslem neighbors
by his “50-caliber utility-riding” (these are called “technicals”) now
supported by al-Qaeda refugees from Afghanistan.
The “de facto” Somaliland
Ambassador to the US is Dr. Saad Noor, who lives in Northern Virginia, and is
not recognized by either the US or the UN, but has a full time job in trying to
get recognition for his separatist state.
The former “foreign minister” Mrs. Edna Adan Ismail, was a long term
expatriate and got wealthy. She has used this wealth in personally sponsoring a
hospital (see below) we will see in Hargeysa, Somaliland’s capital. The
two of these have teamed up to attract a delegation of surgeons (well, OK, one
surgeon and three senior GWU medical students, and one nurse-wife of one of the
students, one PA girlfriend and a FP first-year resident) from a prominent US
medical school to emphasize their cause.
You can guess who the bellwether of this group might be, but the point
man is Kevin Bergman, a senior GWU medical student, who had a prior life as a
computer company rep throughout South America for eight years before medical
school, whom I took on his first foreign medical mission—an experience I
promised him would be contagious. It
was, and is, and, from that first experience, as a freshman medical student in
Ladakh with me and a hard-nosed pharmacy manager named Virginia Bell Croskery,
he has gone again with me, this time as a junior medical student intrigued and
overwhelmed with the surgical miracles he could see before his eyes in
Embangweni Malawi, working alongside a remarkable young woman who was codifying
music for deaf students in bell choirs, named, yes, VBC.
Kevin has met with his two best friends in
GWU’s senior class, Jay McGuire and Juan Reyes and determined that they 1)
would like to have such an experience, that 2) they want to share it together,
and 3) that it must be with me. So,
Kevin met with Dr. (not a medical degree) Saad Noor, and his response is
attached below. Jay Maguire’s wife Jen
is a Pediatric Intensivist Nurse now doing a rotation in California, and at the
thought that she might be a part of such an expedition, she will quit her job
at Stanford, with a letter from me to help her get it back again if they are
lucky enough to match there, for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as a
breathless long distance answering machine message had just been left for them
to drop everything and make plans.
Juan’s girlfriend Amy
Derosier is a PA graduate from GWU last year and also has an epidemiology
degree, now working in GWU Hospital’s Occupational Therapy program and needs
CME credit as a benefit of the contractor Med Corps if she could go on such a
mission, and with me along, that is a done deal. When she was a PA student she had introduced
me to (another) friend Kevin, who had gone subsequently with me to Africa, and
after she heard a presentation she got him a Christmas gift (do you feel the
circle being drawn up here?)—“Out of Assa.”
John Sutter is a first year Family Practice
resident in San Diego working with one of my former GWU colleagues, Rusty Kallenberg,
whose mother went with me on a
medical mission to India over twenty years ago.
[I tell you this so that you do not interpret my jealousy of two of my
students for going with their significant others on these life-changing medical
missions—after all, who would I be to complain of that?—but to assure you that
it does work for another generation in either direction for accompanying
persons!] John had been with me on so
many of my medical missions during his GWU medical school career, one in each
of four years, that he could have taken it as a correspondence course! He saw his first patient with me at Lake Tso
Morari in Ladakh and did his first operation with me in Embangweni,
Malawi. He had primed his boss, Rusty
Kallenberg, that he would need some time during his residency to go abroad, and
specifically to gain some further surgical skills after his inoculation in
Malawi with the fascination of this immediate art. Voila!
John is now checking to move his schedule of rotations. So, this “pick-up scrimmage” has quickly
expanded into a full-blown medical expedition for the benefit of medical
education and inspiration for the first worlders and the health care and
training of the developing third worlders.
I like that. This is one of the
reasons I continue to get out of bed in the morning.
So, at the time you wrote,
with your generous impulse to make a donation to something like what you had
been reading in OOA, you did not know that there were six struggling students
and one homeless peripatetic about to make the following plan which you are
supporting:
THE HORN OF AFRICA-‘04
It is not a long way into
the future! February 1! My American Express card has just carried the
float of the entire Viking Professional high-end kitchen appliances, a fortune
in tree removal services, and –oh, yes—seven (7) round-trip tickets on Air
Ethiopia from here (five from NY’s JFK, and two from SFO) through Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, from which we fly to the capital of the wannabe nation of Somaliland,
Hargeysa. We will be operating at least
thirty cases per week in three sites—the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in
Hargeysa (punch this name into any search engine, it is a gift from the ersatz
foreign minister Edna Ismail mentioned above) and then we will go to the sea
coastal town of Berbera (does the name evoke historic memories?) to be
operating at a rural hospital on the Red Sea, and then we go into the Sool
interior (where the Civil War is not really over yet) to operate in a remote
rural hospital to which we shall have to carry our own supplies, currently
stored in the shed behind my gutted house.
The conditions of our being
there are that we are guests of the President, whose personal invitation has
been extended to me, and who will provide our local accommodation and
transportation. They understand that we
are not there to care for the upper class of the poor nation but to take care
of the poorest and neediest of the destitute people (judged to be among the
poorest people, among stiff competition for that title, on the African
continent by UNICEF (“The Progress of Nations,” 1990) with the highest infant
mortality rate. I will see a lot of
VVF’s (vesico-vaginal fistulas) from neglected obstructed labor, and, as I had
witnessed before, some disasters from the practice of female circumcision, but
mainly the large number of common congenital and acquired surgical illness
never before addressed in an untreated population: e.g., hernias, hydroceles,
goiters, abdominal masses, clefts, and various tumors and neglected trauma,
with all the panoply of tropical disease.
When we can extricate
ourselves from the workload that will greet us in these three venues in
Somaliland, we will fly back to Addis.
There I will be met by a contingent from Gonder University or its
capital representative, and we will fly up the Ethiopian interior Highlands to
Gonder. We will get acquainted with the
facilities and probably make an affiliation for an ongoing relationship to help
them with their medical education efforts and some supplies that can be
forwarded with periodic visits. The
medical students have gone to each of the local hospitals and have been given
loads of supplies to add to my shedful of C-Section kits, surgical drapes and
“theatre supplies” and I will be asking for drug supplies under my license from
MAP international, and will ask for a special exemption from Ethiopian Airways
for help in the excess luggage we will be carrying for humanitarian help. With whatever time can be eked out at Gonder,
we will make a safari into my dreams of an exploration of Lake Tana and the
gorges of the origins of the Blue Nile.
This is also a scouting for a future hunt!
You did not know when you wrote your letter what you were
getting us into, but, I must confess
that such plans are not serendipity alone and are agreeable self-inflicted wounds,
unlike others we are called upon to wait patiently through. But, this is not “pre-life”—though it may be
pre-graduation, or pre-internship move, or pre-walk-through and move back into,
the manse described by someone quite near and dear to us as the “Taj
Mahal.” So, I should not be licking
wounds as I may have done a bit while sitting in a moss-draped tree before dawn
in Cumberland, but be proactive in embracing life with its joys and its pains,
focusing on others who typically have a lot more burden to carry with
overwhelmed resources, but also with typically fewer complaints based in what
“they deserve.”
This brief “note” may cure
you of ever requesting a “letter” from me, but I trust it is helpful in describing
my response to your generosity and encouraging thoughts. Thank you, sincerely, for them.
Cheers!
GWG
Attachments:
“Bastante para Commencar”
“Two Instants in Mozambique”
“YOF” Outline
Foreword to “Surgical Endocrinology”
“Cumberland-01”
“Cumberland-04”
“OOA” copies (forwarded
under separate cover)
Dr. Saad Noor’s response to
Kevin Bergman’s email
“Somaliland” web sites
Robert Croskery email to
which this is a response
CC:
Emmiru Hailu
Skip Williams
Peter Hotez
Jay Maguire
Juan Reyes
John P Sutter
Saad Noor
Huda Ayas
Edna Ismail
Beverley Croskery
Kate Jones
Keith Carr
Keith Bair
Kay Sadighi
Kevin Bergman
Dale Kramer
Paul Gibbs\
Reg Franciose
Garnon/Fulbright
Martha Thompson
Sammy Gorman
Ethiopian Consulate
Somaliland Consulate
US State Department
Sreedar Potarazu
ACS
Jennifer Herendeen
Steven Regnier
04-Jan-B-2
Charles Proye
Family
MAP, Rebecca Bohl
Honduran, Cathy Rubio
Ethiopian Air
Hailie Mezghebe
Jim Scott
Scott
Harolyn Johnson
Chona Hamrock
Allan Mellicor
Amy Hayes
George Poehlman
Tino Damasceno
Ivo Paulo Garrido
Roger Herr
Kay Sadighi
Thank
you for the email! I have not finished ASSA, but it is gripping and
compelling. You are not only a superb surgeon, a great guy, a happy
hunter, an exciting adverturer, but also riveting writer!
Bev mentioned that you might like to create your own publishing company.
If so, I'd be happy to show you how to do it. However,
I think ASSA is good enough that if some major publishers were to read it, you
might well get one of them to take you on; (which would be a whole lot
less work!)
Are there more copies of ASSA available? I'd like to buy
several. I want to give one to my friend Larry Conway, Ph.D., who
is not only a famous economist, but who also heads a foundation in Toledo which
has a "Hall of Fame" for medical missionaries; I want one for
my dear friend Helen Verkamp who is a wonderful photographer and anthropologist
who lives with an photgraphs primitive peoples; one for my friend Jack Payne
who is a retired medical missionary and a tennis buddy; Jack has done wonderful
work in the Cameroons, and would enjoy your work;
So, if they are available, I'd like to buy a half dozen for friends.
Let me know the amount and the place to send a check.
Ps. I am sending you a small donation for your work.
let's keep in touch. Bob
> From: Glenn Geelhoed <msdgwg@gwumc.edu>
> Date: 2004/01/08 Thu AM 11:19:24 EST
> To: rwcroskery@fuse.net
> Subject: Fwd: RE: A good year--with hope for healing and happiness
>
> Dear Robert:
>
> A very gracious note from Beverly has informed me that you are enjoying
"Out of Assa: Heart of the Congo" along with some kind words about my
"other life" as a writer. You should be careful, or you may be
on the receiving end of a cascade of adventures! For starters, there might be
the year-end reviews of '02, '01, and '00--the "prequel" from the
entry of Virginia into my life!
>
> In starting my reading of "Shamir" I noted the name of the
publisher, Bell Forsythe, and that reminded me of a brief story Virginia had
once told me, which Beverly filled in further and suggested I might ask you
more.
>
> I had sent a note in inquiry, since I had assembled several books, one of
which was in press when the publisher went belly up. I had sent Beverly
an outline of the adventure travel book entitled "The Year of
Fulbrightness," with another dying aborning entitled "Himalayan High:
A Series of Treks and Medical Missions Along the Roof of the World."
I had asked the question only because I am reluctant to shrug off the collected
works assigned to the cutting room floor by the publisher's insolvency and
wanted to know more about how such manuscripts could come to the attention of
someone who knows more about publishing "trade books" than the prior
"Three Hawks" obvious deficits in this regard.
>
> I will attach two sample chapters about my experiences in Mozambique to
begin the "YOF." One relates the events of my arrival
("Instants") in which it seems Europeans and Africans made a good
effort to kill each other, and the second ("Mozambique") relates one
of the most unusual and riveting of my experiences in Southern Africa. I
hope you enjoy them, and I would appreciate your advice, from the time I am
cribbing from your otherwise saturated life, as to what to do with them and a
myriad more like them.
>
> I am leaving now for a quite different kind of trip than I had previously
planned to Cumberland Island. It was to have been an idyllic retreat (see
below) but it may now be a place to do some deep reflection of my own against
the backdrop of wonderful wilderness. I know you like the combination of
adventure, the hunt, natural history and the philosophic narrative of our place
in this wonderful and often bewildering world of wonder, so I am going to
attach a story (01-Jan-B-2) from a previous trip there, into the unknown and
unexpected. It may not be quite the same as Marlowe's excursion into
"The Heart of Darkness," since I begin by worrying about someone
else's problem--in a situation you might be able to relate to--it is my son's,
and the powerlessness to solve it for him. I was then distracted by the
wilderness and the unanticipated surprises of the hunt--an ending that I could
not have made up if I strained an overheated imagination.
>
> It may be an ideal retreat while reeling from reversals, against the
reality of change, and a source of hope I had wished to share.
>
> After initial hesitation, I may also attach the narrative (04-Jan-A-1-5)
of my own recent events in isolation. In answer to Beverly's questions,
the renovation is now in full speed with the interior work being completed in
rapid superb craftsmanship, for the arrival of all that custom designed
furniture and the "Professional" Viking kitchen appliances early next
month.
>
> The well-feathered nest may not be ideally suited for a migrant bird that
had been making plans to come to roost more regularly, but it will remain as a
standing invitation for your visit!
>
> Thank you for your interest, and even more deeply, for your continuing
support of Virginia.
>
> GWG
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The plans for Derwood and subsequently the early arrival in Cumberland
have been changed.
>
> Since there will be no "walkthrough" on January 8, Virginia is
not flying in and doing the walk, then going down by air to JAX--all of which
is being postponed to when it will actually be ready to walk through.
That is soon, however, since the inspectors came through yesterday, and
all of the plumbing and electrical components should be finished by week's end
and the dry walling starts on Friday.
>
>
>
> >>> "Carr, Keith," <KCarr@LMUS.LeggMason.com>
12/31/03 12:40PM >>>
>
>
> Glenn - I hope Virginia is still going to Cumberland and you have a great
time and successful hunt. If plans have changed since last speaking to
Liz, let her know so she has everything coordinated. Happy New Year - Keith
> Thanks!
>
> As the plans are now modified, she will not be coming to Cumberland now,
and we will have to wait for the Spanish-moss-draped-live-oak-and-sand-dune magic
that enticed Kate to work its magic at a later date.
>
> Thanks for the help with all the arrangements, and I will check back with
you soon!
>
> GWG
>
>
>
>
Dear Mr. Bergman,
Thank you very much for your message and appreciate your offer to send a team to Somaliland.
Your discussions with Ambassador Saad and Krilla have also been appreciated.
Regarding the visit to Somaliland, we welcome this but need to have a few details and arrangements in place before you set out:
1. I am sure that you have been informed that the hospital that I have built is a non-profit Charity that has to cover its expenses. For this reason, and in order to maintain the high standard of care that we offer our patients, we have to charge patients a small nominal fee and cannot admit patients, or have them operated in our hospital totally free of charge. I am also aware that the government hospital also charges a small fee even though the standards of these hospitals are much lower than ours where we have a strong team of well trained nursing and medical staff. Because we are a teaching hospital, we welcome opprtunities for visiting teams like the one you propose as long as we find the fiancial means to cover part of the expenses of the operations you propose to carry out.
2. A second option would be for your team to see patients and treat them on out-patient basis if you are ready to provide them with the necessary prescriptions that might be needed.
3. Third option would be for us to arrange for your team to carry out some operations on the understanding that you will bring your sutures, dressings, instruments etc.. There will be the food and hospital stay to add as patients will need to be kept in hospital for a certain length of time and will need nursing care. We usually charge patients US$150 to cover the cost of the operation and anaesthesia, and a further $3 a day for food and nursing. Can we find any sponsors to cover these needs ?
4. In the past, we have had surgical teams from the UK and they do operations and much teaching to our staff. They also stay at our hospital residential quarters so that they are on hand 24 hours a day while here and this also helps them pay less than they would have spent had they stayed in an hotel
Please let me know your reaction.
Regards,
Edna Ada Ismail,
Foreign Minister of Somaliland and also Founder of the Edna Adan Maternity and Teaching Hospital
>>>
kevin bergman <kbergman@yahoo.com> 01/15/04 14:22 PM >>>
we didnt actually decide yet but... fyi
--- Saad Noor <snoor@wesi.com> wrote:
> From: "Saad Noor" <snoor@wesi.com>
> To: "'kevin bergman'" <kbergman@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: Surgical mission to Somaliland Feb 1-16
> Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:19:06 -0500
>
>
>
> Kevin,
> Thanks for your our decision and the team's decision
> to go to our beloved
> "Maandeeq", as Somaliland is affectionately known to
> us. Maanddeeq means the
> mind satisfier! And thank you for your kind words
> about humble me. Your
> message to Edna was diplomatic and precisely clear
> and I hope it will
> suffice.
> I sent a message to the Presidency and asked for
> immediate approval of the
> mission's visit and the undertaking of the necessary
> preparations needed for
> the team's work. I hope I will get an answer early
> next week.
> Your global outlook, affinity to the needy, wit and
> enthusiasm are very
> inspiring.
> Will be in touch.
> Best
>
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From: |
kevin bergman <kbergman@yahoo.com> |
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To: |
Glenn Geelhoed, jaym@gwu.edu, jreyes60@gwu.edu |
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Date: |
Monday - January 12, 2004 6:37 PM |
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FOREWORD
GLENN W. GEELHOED is one of the most extraordinary characters I ever met in my surgical carrier and personal life as well. Basically he is an academic surgeon mostly interested in endocrine surgery and that is the reason why we met thirty years ago. But with the years gone by and through our permanent contacts I could realize that this facet is only one of those many encompassed by the personality of this quicksilver gentleman. He is also a marathon-runner a great scuba diver, an expert mountain-climber, a wild game hunter an expert in wine history, an unexhaustable globetrotter and above all a great humanist and a faithful friend. He travels so much, he is so interested in anything he can see and share in both hemispheres, he is skyrocketing so high above my head that every year when he sends to me at Christmas season the summary of his achievements, I get jet-lagged. Now, at the fall of his career he is dedicating himself mostly to surgery in developing countries and I think that he is several decades ahead of the current considerations we can have of problems in surgery and especially endocrine surgery or a worldwide scale. Only Professor Glenn W. Geelhoed could write this book mixing up the current state of Surgery and forthcoming expected events in terms of surgical economy. It is a great privilege to write this foreword. I am sure that this book will be greatly appreciated by the incoming generation of endocrine surgeons.
PROFESSEUR Charles A.G. PROYE Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Hon) Professor of General and Endocrine Surgery, Lille, France Member of the French Academy of Surgery Member of the British Association of Endocrine Surgeons Member of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons Founding President of the French Association of Endocrine surgeons Past-president of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons (I.A.E.S)
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