A Place Of Miracles The Story Of A Children S Hospital In Kabul And The People Whose Lives Have Been Changed By It

Neha Was the Smallest Infant to Ever be Treated and Survive in Afghanistan. An unusual partnership created the French Medical Institute for Children - two private, non-governmental organizations - the Aga Khan Development Network and the France-based humanitarian entity, La Chaine de l'Espoir, and two governments - the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and France. The result is an institution that has enabled children's lives to be saved that might have otherwise been lost. Nearly 1,600 children have been treated for congenital and acquired heart diseases, almost half of which had open-heart surgery. Arising during a time of seemingly never-ending war, FMIC is one of Afghanistan's most remarkable success stories. It has become the enabling catalyst for lives to be changed and dreams to be realized - a place where people have succeeded and survived against overwhelming obstacles and odds. As the U.S. and its allies prepare to shift their missions in Afghanistan from military and combat to aid and development, the general consensus is that nothing done in that war-torn country has been successful. FMIC is one of Afghanistan's most remarkable reconstruction success stories. It is a model that can be emulated as the U.S. and others strive to complete their development missions there. "FMIC has achieved many successes and achieved excellence in many fields in healthcare in Afghanistan. This Institute is a true example of a successful public-private partnership." Dr. Suraya Dalil, Afghanistan's Minister of Public Health, speaking at FMIC's 2nd International Pediatric Conference, December 2012. "When we have international societies with us and partnerships like FMIC, we can have hope for the future. This hope gives me energy to go ahead." Dr. Jalil Wardak, Head of Pediatric General Surgery at FMIC

Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children is the most famous medical institution in Canada. In addition to being the largest pediatric centre in North America, it has earned an international reputation for clinical care and research that has influenced generations of health care practitioners across the country and around the world. In a very real sense, hospital staff have touched the lives of tens of thousands of children and their families. SickKids has an equally remarkable history - from its humble origins in rented houses in Victorian Toronto, the Hospital would flourish to become an influential paediatric institution, pioneering Pasteurization, the Iron Lung for Polio, Pablum, the Mustard Procedure for 'Blue Babies', and the discovery of the gene for Cystic Fibrosis. It would also be the site of two of most famous medical controversies in modern Canadian history -- the suspected murder of two dozen babies in the early 1980s and, more recently, the whistle-blowing controversy involving the research scientist, Nancy Olivieri. David Wright’s History of The Hospital for Sick Children chronicles this remarkable history of the SickKids, including its triumphs and tragedies, its discoveries and dead-ends. In doing so, Wright has crafted a compelling and accessible history of SickKids that anchors Toronto's children's hospital within the broader changes affecting Canadian society and medical practice over the last century.

"...tells the stories of 60 individuals whose lives were somehow touched by Le Bonheur. Parents share their memories, heartaches and miracles, volunteers reminisce about Le Bonheur's early days, employees detail decades of service and physicians discuss the evolution of pediatric medicine."--

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

When people ask, "How did you get here?" I know they are really asking, "How did you, female of color from Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, get here?" Dr. Rose-Marie Toussaint is unique--a young black woman surgeon specializing in liver and kidney transplants at a major university hospital. How did she get there? In this amazing book Toussaint tells us. Her inspiring story starts when a vodun priest predicts she will grow up to be a physician, then chronicles her rise to the pinnacle of her profession. Rose-Marie's family struggled not only with her parents' chaotic marriage, but with the seismic changes that were beginning to grip their homeland. When the Toussaints emigrated to Miami, Rose-Marie immersed herself in science and math classes, and her dream of becoming a doctor began to take shape. But the road to her dream was littered with obstacles: getting into college, making good grades, getting into medical school, and surviving the grueling, soul-crushing rigors that test every surgeon in the making. Add to that Dr. Toussaint's status as a black female in white male-dominated institutions and one can only admire the courage, fortitude, and determination that propelled her to obtain her M.D.--with some help from a few miracles along the way. As a surgeon, it was her turn to become a miracle worker--for her patients. Dr. Toussaint takes us into hospital rooms to meet desperate patients praying for a life-giving organ, and into the OR to observe the wonder of transplantation. She vividly brings to life the breakneck race against time to prepare transplant patients when an organ suddenly becomes available, the long hours of surgery--sometimes more than 20--that both doctor and patient must endure. And she never forgets that for every life she saves another has been lost. This is a book full of miracles--not least, Rose-Marie Toussaint's own luminous spirit, which lights up every page. To share her journey is a rare opportunity to experience the faith and resilience of a woman dedicated to making miracles happen.

Written in collaboration with critically acclaimed NATIONAL BOOK AWARD finalist Patricia McCormick, Malala tells her story - from her childhood in the Swat Valley to the shooting, her recovery and new life in England. She's a girl who loves cricket, gossips with her best friends, and, on the day of the shooting, nearly overslept and missed an exam. A girl who saw women suddenly banned from public, schools blown up, the Taliban seize control, and her homeland descend into a state of fear and repression. This is the story of her life, and also of her passionate belief in every child's right to education, her determination to make that a reality throughout the world, and her hope to inspire others.

A sharp and arresting people's-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction. Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the city's prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijacked—by Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeers—always with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between what's boasted of and what is. At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends so much upon our own.

Living with a Miracle is a compelling story of a mother's love and desperate attempt to build a life and family while fighting for her child's life. In the fall of 1988, after a difficult and complicated pregnancy, Syra Marie was born. Elation is not strong enough to express the joy of becoming a mother. The day after Syra was born; the pediatrician informed me she had a heart murmur. Being a nurse, I was concerned but had no reason to believe it was anything life threatening, many children are born with heart murmurs and lead a normal life. That evening after our "celebration" dinner, we returned to the nursery to see Syra. However, our celebration quickly turned into a nightmare. Life Flight was flying our baby to a children's hospital two hours away. Only two days old following a heart catherization, we were told Syra had a rare and lethal heart defect. This is a story that cuts to the heart of a mother's love for her child and their journey together against impossible odds. Here is Syra's story