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A review by liralen
Called for Life: How Loving Our Neighbor Led Us into the Heart of the Ebola Epidemic by Kent Brantly
3.0
I admit to some surprise, and then surprise at my surprise, that Kent Brantly's story is in book form already. Oh, it was only a matter of time, but I suppose there's a part of me that wishes the publishers had waited until the Ebola crisis is over—there's something uncomfortable about a book talking about how lucky they were when Ebola's still a threat in parts of West Africa.*
In any case...here we go. Well done as a book, though sometimes with that stilted 'ghostwriter' tone. I would have liked a clearer timeline—I struggled to piece together things like how long he was in Liberia after diagnosis and how long he was in hospital in the U.S. But I'm more interested in some of the insights on working in a hospital full of patients with Ebola:
Brantly was, when he and his family went to Liberia, relatively untried as a doctor. I do not mean unqualified—only that he'd gone from med school to residency to a post-residency spot, and then straight into missionary work in Liberia. It must have been tremendously difficult to accept the lack of power the doctors had to save their patients from Ebola; of all those Brantly and his colleagues treated, only one survived. One. I know other areas have had lower mortality rates, so I don't know why these rates were so high or if they later went down at that hospital—was it a particularly violent strain? Was the hospital under-equipped in a way that made a difference? Brantly doesn't speculate. He does say this:
Fair enough—sometimes death with dignity is all you can do. But still, yes, must have been hard.
And on mission work, and his faith, he says this (well, and a lot more, but let's leave it at this for now):
I highlight that first quotation because the mind boggles. I mean, yes, it's good that they didn't consider themselves divinely protected. What surprises me is that that made it into the book—that enough people might have thought they did think themselves divinely protected that they addressed it. (I wonder how that came about—did the ghostwriter ask? Had others?)
The second two quotations I pull out for a different reason. The one on page 78 relieved me, if I'm honest; the one on 79 made me think...well, that his view might be a bit rose-coloured. Appropriate boundaries, hurray. But not everyone has them. (I'm reminded of a conversation I heard a few years ago in which one of the participants was a hospital director from Sudan. It's a long story, longer than I want to write out here and tangential anyway, but the upshot was that he viewed the primary purpose of treating non-Christians at his hospital to be to convert them.)
But I digress. Some other interesting tidbits: I believed that if I did have Ebola, I would feel worse than I did, he says (104) while waiting for test results. I found this quite funny, in a way, because as a doctor, he knew better: he'd earlier commented (62) that a patient who had tested positive for Ebola seemed to think the same way—it hadn't hit home because he felt okay. (Doctors, they're just like us!) And then the mention of logistics with getting out of Liberia—that the insurance company didn't want to deal with a patient with Ebola, and that Countries in both North Africa and Europe had refused to grant clearance for a plane with me on board to fly through their air space. If our plane needed to make an emergency landing or crashed, the did not want someone carrying Ebola on the ground (137). Especially interesting in the context of the hysterics when the Ebola crisis first hit the news big-time. Won't get into that further, except to say that looking up crash statistics is very reassuring for a nervous traveller.
At any rate—interesting enough read, though one that probably didn't take enough advantage of his role/background/knowledge as a doctor.
*I do understand how publishing works, and that they would have wanted to strike while the iron's hot, not delay publication indefinitely.
In any case...here we go. Well done as a book, though sometimes with that stilted 'ghostwriter' tone. I would have liked a clearer timeline—I struggled to piece together things like how long he was in Liberia after diagnosis and how long he was in hospital in the U.S. But I'm more interested in some of the insights on working in a hospital full of patients with Ebola:
Brantly was, when he and his family went to Liberia, relatively untried as a doctor. I do not mean unqualified—only that he'd gone from med school to residency to a post-residency spot, and then straight into missionary work in Liberia. It must have been tremendously difficult to accept the lack of power the doctors had to save their patients from Ebola; of all those Brantly and his colleagues treated, only one survived. One. I know other areas have had lower mortality rates, so I don't know why these rates were so high or if they later went down at that hospital—was it a particularly violent strain? Was the hospital under-equipped in a way that made a difference? Brantly doesn't speculate. He does say this:
When I reflect on patients like Korpu, Serena, and Francis, I do not feel like my care was a failure. Even though they died, I feel that I did something more for them than treat their sickness. I did everything I could to save their lives and could not, but I also had compassion on them. I entered into their suffering with them. I tried to offer back to them the dignity that Ebola was taking away. (76)
Fair enough—sometimes death with dignity is all you can do. But still, yes, must have been hard.
And on mission work, and his faith, he says this (well, and a lot more, but let's leave it at this for now):
We didn't believe that because we were there as medical missionaries we would automatically be divinely protected from getting Ebola. (21)
As a follower of Jesus... I am to show compassion and mercy to everyone... But the doctor-patient relationship is not one of equal footing. There is a power differential. And just like any other relationship, the one in a position of power must respect the vulnerability of the one seeking help. It is wrong for a doctor to use the position of power over a patient to impose religious teachings on someone who may not feel like he has any choice but to listen and agree. (78)
There are people who have serious grumbles against medical missions, because they think its purpose is to leverage that power in patients' moments of vulnerability to coerce them into a religion. But there is nothing coercive about Jesus. (79)
I highlight that first quotation because the mind boggles. I mean, yes, it's good that they didn't consider themselves divinely protected. What surprises me is that that made it into the book—that enough people might have thought they did think themselves divinely protected that they addressed it. (I wonder how that came about—did the ghostwriter ask? Had others?)
The second two quotations I pull out for a different reason. The one on page 78 relieved me, if I'm honest; the one on 79 made me think...well, that his view might be a bit rose-coloured. Appropriate boundaries, hurray. But not everyone has them. (I'm reminded of a conversation I heard a few years ago in which one of the participants was a hospital director from Sudan. It's a long story, longer than I want to write out here and tangential anyway, but the upshot was that he viewed the primary purpose of treating non-Christians at his hospital to be to convert them.)
But I digress. Some other interesting tidbits: I believed that if I did have Ebola, I would feel worse than I did, he says (104) while waiting for test results. I found this quite funny, in a way, because as a doctor, he knew better: he'd earlier commented (62) that a patient who had tested positive for Ebola seemed to think the same way—it hadn't hit home because he felt okay. (Doctors, they're just like us!) And then the mention of logistics with getting out of Liberia—that the insurance company didn't want to deal with a patient with Ebola, and that Countries in both North Africa and Europe had refused to grant clearance for a plane with me on board to fly through their air space. If our plane needed to make an emergency landing or crashed, the did not want someone carrying Ebola on the ground (137). Especially interesting in the context of the hysterics when the Ebola crisis first hit the news big-time. Won't get into that further, except to say that looking up crash statistics is very reassuring for a nervous traveller.
At any rate—interesting enough read, though one that probably didn't take enough advantage of his role/background/knowledge as a doctor.
*I do understand how publishing works, and that they would have wanted to strike while the iron's hot, not delay publication indefinitely.