East African Doctors

John Iliffe's 1998 book is a history of the African medical profession in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania from the earliest training of modern medical staff in the 1870s to the present day. Based on extensive research, and dealing exclusively with African doctors, it offers an understanding of professionalisation in the Third World. It describes the recruitment and education of doctors, their understanding and practice of modern medicine, the struggle for international recognition of their qualifications and efforts to develop East African medical systems after independence, and their experiences during a period of political and economic difficulty. The book ends with an account of the significant work of East African doctors in the study and control of AIDS. This is a major contribution to the social history of Africa and to the social history of medicine more broadly.

This ground-breaking book offers unique insights into the careers of Indian doctors in colonial Kenya during the height of British colonialism, between 1895 and 1940. The story of these important Indian professionals presents a rare social history of an important political minority.

Dr. Rees tells of the Flying Doctors of East Africa, the largest indigenous international health development and non-governmental organization in sub-Sahara Africa operating in nine African countries with a full-time staff of over 600, which was started in 1957 by three plastic surgeons.

The role of the Colonial Medical Service - the organisation responsible for healthcare in British overseas territories - goes to the heart of the British Colonial project. Practising Colonial Medicine is a unique study based on original sources and research into the work of doctors who served in East Africa. It shows the formulation of a distinct colonial identity based on factors of race, class, background, training and Colonial Service traditions, buttressed by professional skills and practice. Recruitment to the Medical Service bound its members to the Colonial Service ethos exemplified by the principles of the legendary Sir Ralph Furse, head of Colonial Office recruitment to the Service. Thus the Service was to be a corps d'élite consisting of Furse's 'good men' - self-reliant, practical, conscientious, professionally qualified people whose personalities were 'such as to command the respect and trust of the native inhabitants of the colony'. Professsional qualifications were important but 'secondary to character'. Anna Crozier analyses all aspects of recruitment, qualifications, training as well as the vital personal factors that shaped the Service's character - religion, a sense of adventure, professional interest, ideas of imperial service, family traditions, professional ties, perceptions of service to humanity and the building up of a common service mentality among colonial medical staff. This is the first comprehensive history of the Colonial Medical Service and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the social and cultural aspects of medical history.

Missing from the abundant literature on the history of British East Africa had been an evaluation of the British medical administration and its relation to the conduct of East African colonial governments. Beck's account of the modernization and development of scientific health services in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika during the first half of the twentieth century not only filled that void, it also provided additional insight into the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the colonies. Included in her study of this complex system of colonial medical services are discussions of the changing and conflicting objectives of the colonial personnel, other influences on medical policy such as tribal traditions and varieties of climates within the region, disease control, and public health education of the Africans. She also considers the impact of World War I on the medical administration and presents her general observations on medical services in developing countries.

A profound exploration of emergency medicine practiced at the most remote and challenging frontiers of East Africa. This inspiring memoir finds hope and meaning in the face of extraordinary odds as a young physician asks: What are the ethical and moral dimensions of saving one life knowing countless others will die? In 2008, a young doctor set out for Kenya to volunteer with the famed AMREF East African Flying Doctors Service. An emergency physician looking to make a difference, Marc-David Munk flew dozens of missions as a flight surgeon to eleven East African countries, including war-torn Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. From his unarmed air ambulance, Munk and his team treated patients suffering with severe trauma, possible Ebola hemorrhagic fever, elephantiasis, malaria, and gunshot wounds. The crew dodged corrupt officials; landed their planes on unlit grass strips, after first scaring away livestock; were threatened by al-Shabaab jihadis, navigated war zones; and clandestinely treated a U.S military serviceman. They also experienced some of the most beautiful parts of Africa and met the incredible people who live there. The tight-knit crew was passionate about saving lives despite the risks inherent in flights across war zones. In Urgent Calls from Distant Places, the missions described are real and compelling. Readers will meet sick NGO workers in Somalia, malnourished Ugandan soldiers, suicidal teenagers, violent cow rustlers, American special forces, albino children murdered for their body parts, and even 19th-century explorers David Livingstone and Henry Stanley. Each chapter details the medical challenges of the mission but also explores the greater philosophical questions raised by treating patients in East Africa: African history, the impact of colonialism, communism, religion, terrorism, and war. Munk examines the unique histories and politics of the eleven countries he visits. Urgent Calls is the story of the doctors, nurses, and pilots who tackled complex and dangerous missions to save lives. The book also bears witness to the author's moral development as a healer and as a human. Urgent Calls takes readers to the wild beauty of East Africa and embraces the challenges of healing patients with humility, gratitude, and hope... one life at a time.

Examines colonial medical policy and the ways in which doctors of the Colonial Medical Service dealt with the day-to-day reality of care-giving in Imperial Africa.

Based on fieldwork conducted between 2001-2008 in urban East Africa, this book explores who the patients, practitioners and paraprofessionals doing Chinese medicine were in this early period of renewed China-Africa relations. Rather than taking recourse to the ‘placebo effect’, the author explains through the spatialities and materialities of the medical procedures provided why - apart from purchasing the Chinese antimalarial called Artemisinin - locals would try out their ‘alternatively modern’ formulas for treating a wide range of post-colonial disorders and seek their sexual enhancement medicines.