One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana
When Dr. Daniel Baxter arrived in Botswana in 2002, he was confident of the purity of his mission to help people with AIDS, armed with what he thought were immutable truths about life—and himself—that had been forged on his AIDS ward in New York City ten years earlier. But Baxter’s good intentions were quickly overwhelmed by the reality of AIDS in Africa, his misguided altruism engulfed by the sea of need around him. Lifted up by Botswana’s remarkable and forgiving people, Baxter soldiered on, his memorable encounters with those living with AIDS, and their unfathomable woes assuaged by their oft-repeated “But God is good,” profoundly changing the way he thought about his role as a doctor.
Now, after caring for innumerable AIDS patients for eight years in Botswana, Baxter has written an urgent, quietly philosophical account of his journey into the early twenty-first century’s new heart of darkness: AIDS in Africa, where legions desperately struggled to be among the spared and not the doomed. Part memoir, part travelogue, part chronicle of the zaniness of Botswana (one of the questions on his driver’s license application was “Are you or have you ever been an imbecile?”), and part witness to suffering unknown to most Americans, his testimony is an unforgettable tribute to the many people he cared for.
Join Baxter on his life-changing journey in Botswana, as he recounts the stories of people like Ralph, a deteriorating AIDS and cancer patient who nonetheless always wore a smile, or Precious, a woman found sick and abandoned in the capital’s slum, or “No Fear,” a rude man in Baxter’s gym whose descent he halted. After many years on the front lines of the African pandemic, Baxter realized that “one life at a time” was the only way to fight AIDS.
1127264774
One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana
When Dr. Daniel Baxter arrived in Botswana in 2002, he was confident of the purity of his mission to help people with AIDS, armed with what he thought were immutable truths about life—and himself—that had been forged on his AIDS ward in New York City ten years earlier. But Baxter’s good intentions were quickly overwhelmed by the reality of AIDS in Africa, his misguided altruism engulfed by the sea of need around him. Lifted up by Botswana’s remarkable and forgiving people, Baxter soldiered on, his memorable encounters with those living with AIDS, and their unfathomable woes assuaged by their oft-repeated “But God is good,” profoundly changing the way he thought about his role as a doctor.
Now, after caring for innumerable AIDS patients for eight years in Botswana, Baxter has written an urgent, quietly philosophical account of his journey into the early twenty-first century’s new heart of darkness: AIDS in Africa, where legions desperately struggled to be among the spared and not the doomed. Part memoir, part travelogue, part chronicle of the zaniness of Botswana (one of the questions on his driver’s license application was “Are you or have you ever been an imbecile?”), and part witness to suffering unknown to most Americans, his testimony is an unforgettable tribute to the many people he cared for.
Join Baxter on his life-changing journey in Botswana, as he recounts the stories of people like Ralph, a deteriorating AIDS and cancer patient who nonetheless always wore a smile, or Precious, a woman found sick and abandoned in the capital’s slum, or “No Fear,” a rude man in Baxter’s gym whose descent he halted. After many years on the front lines of the African pandemic, Baxter realized that “one life at a time” was the only way to fight AIDS.
18.99 In Stock
One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana

One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana

by Daniel Baxter
One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana

One Life at a Time: An American Doctor's Memoir of AIDS in Botswana

by Daniel Baxter

eBook

$18.99 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

When Dr. Daniel Baxter arrived in Botswana in 2002, he was confident of the purity of his mission to help people with AIDS, armed with what he thought were immutable truths about life—and himself—that had been forged on his AIDS ward in New York City ten years earlier. But Baxter’s good intentions were quickly overwhelmed by the reality of AIDS in Africa, his misguided altruism engulfed by the sea of need around him. Lifted up by Botswana’s remarkable and forgiving people, Baxter soldiered on, his memorable encounters with those living with AIDS, and their unfathomable woes assuaged by their oft-repeated “But God is good,” profoundly changing the way he thought about his role as a doctor.
Now, after caring for innumerable AIDS patients for eight years in Botswana, Baxter has written an urgent, quietly philosophical account of his journey into the early twenty-first century’s new heart of darkness: AIDS in Africa, where legions desperately struggled to be among the spared and not the doomed. Part memoir, part travelogue, part chronicle of the zaniness of Botswana (one of the questions on his driver’s license application was “Are you or have you ever been an imbecile?”), and part witness to suffering unknown to most Americans, his testimony is an unforgettable tribute to the many people he cared for.
Join Baxter on his life-changing journey in Botswana, as he recounts the stories of people like Ralph, a deteriorating AIDS and cancer patient who nonetheless always wore a smile, or Precious, a woman found sick and abandoned in the capital’s slum, or “No Fear,” a rude man in Baxter’s gym whose descent he halted. After many years on the front lines of the African pandemic, Baxter realized that “one life at a time” was the only way to fight AIDS.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781510735774
Publisher: Skyhorse
Publication date: 06/26/2018
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 312
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Daniel Baxter is a physician at the William F. Ryan Community Health Center in New York City and acclaimed author of The Least of These My Brethren: A Doctor’s Story of Hope and Miracles on an Inner-City AIDS Ward. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a board-certified internist, he worked at the Spellman Center for HIV-Related Diseases in New York before moving to Botswana for six years to assist with the rollout of the country’s HIV/AIDS Treatment Programme, the first such initiative on the continent. In 2013 he returned to Botswana for two years to work as Lecturer and Specialist Physician in the medical school.
Daniel Baxter is a physician at the William F. Ryan Community Health Center in New York City and acclaimed author of The Least of These My Brethren: A Doctor’s Story of Hope and Miracles on an Inner-City AIDS Ward. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a board-certified internist, he worked at the Spellman Center for HIV-Related Diseases in New York before moving to Botswana for six years to assist with the rollout of the country’s HIV/AIDS Treatment Programme, the first such initiative on the continent. In 2013 he returned to Botswana for two years to work as Lecturer and Specialist Physician in the medical school.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

Prologue xiii

Part 1 Beginnings 1

Chapter 1 First Rumblings 3

Chapter 2 In the Thick of It: "The New Face of AIDS" 10

Chapter 3 First Forays into Africa 15

Part 2 The Great Experiment Begins: Botswana 2002-2008 25

Chapter 4 Not a Community of Mother Teresa's 27

Chapter 5 Crash and Burn 35

Chapter 6 Learning to Dance 62

Chapter 7 Outreach 2003: Molepolole 71

Chapter 8 Local Flora and Fauna: "Are You or Have You Ever Been an Imbecile?" 98

Chapter 9 Holy Cross Hospice 106

Chapter 10 Local Flora and Fauna: "A First-Rate Country for Second-Rate People" 122

Chapter 11 All Part of the Package 128

Chapter 12 Enough Is Enough, or Not Outstaying Your Welcome 157

Part 3 American Interlude 167

Chapter 13 Room 4224 169

Part 4 Botswana, 2013-2015: Into the Belly of the Beast 177

Chapter 14 The More Things Changed … 179

Chapter 15 Princess Marina, I 184

Chapter 16 Outreach, Ten Years Later 214

Chapter 17 Holy Cross Hospice: Final Lessons 229

Chapter 18 Princess Marina, II 249

Chapter 19 Final Departure 281

Afterword 287

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews