To Bear Witness: Updated, Revised, and Expanded Edition

by Kevin M. Cahill

Overview

For more than fifty years, Dr. Cahill has been helping to heal the world, as a leading specialist in tropical medicine and as a driving force in humanitarian assistance and relief efforts around the globe. In this revised and expanded edition, he chronicles extraordinary achievements of compassion and commitment. Bringing together a rich selection of writings, he crafts a fascinating memoir of a life devoted to others. The book includes front-line reports from places under siege—Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Gaza, and Ireland; there are also visionary essays from the origins of the AIDS epidemic and landmine crises, and no less passionate concerns of his own experiences of pain and suffering—as well as of joy and beauty—in the worlds in which he has traveled. As the distinguished neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, M.D., notes in his endorsement, “These essays, by turns elegiac, lyrical, funny, tender, nostalgic, and vehemently impassioned, come together in an ongoing tapestry, a portrait of a dedicated physician who has dared to make a difference.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823255917
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	06/21/2013
Series:	International Humanitarian Affairs
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., (1936-2022) was University Professor and Director at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University and the President of the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation in New York City. He was also a Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine and Molecular Parasitology at New York University and Director of the Tropical Disease Center at Lenox Hill Hospital. He served as the Chief Advisor on Humanitarian and Public Health Issues for three Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly and for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. His career in tropical medicine and humanitarian operations began in Calcutta in 1959; he carried out medical, relief, and epidemiological research in 70 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He wrote or edited 33 books, translated into many languages, and more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals on subjects ranging from public health and tropical diseases to humanitarian assistance, foreign affairs, Irish literature, and history. He held numerous Honorary Doctorates from universities around the world.

Table of Contents

Part One: Locations 15

The Middle East 18
Beirut's Smell of Death 19
A Doctor's Reflections on the Libyan Situation 21
Gaza—Destruction and Hope 23

Somalia 32
For a U.S. Role in Somalia 33
Palm Sunday in Somalia 34
Starving Refugees Overwhelm Somalia 36
A Somali Postscript 39

Nicaragua 44
The Nicaraguan Earthquake 45
The Price for Differing with the U.S. Is Death 48
Of Constitutions, Democracy, Medicine, and Diplomacy 50
Holidays in Nicaragua 53
Fasting and Medicine in Nicaragua 56

Ireland 60
A Perverse Silence 61
Red Stains on the Emerald Isle: Can Only Blood Wash Them Out? 64
A Deathless Dream 67
The Descendants of the High Kings of Ireland 71

Part Two: Academia 75
New Realities, New Frontiers 78
The Peculiar lan 83
The University and Revolution 87
The Symbolism of Salamanca 91
Grief and Renewal 98
To Bind our Wounds 100
Loaded Words 107
Dreams and Travel 112
A Necessary Balance 113
A Dublin Department 120
Is That All There Is? 123

Part Three: Continuity 128
Health on the Horn of Africa 132
The Untapped Resource 138
Irish Essays 142
Threads for a Tapestry 145
Famine 150
The AIDS Epidemic 151
A Bridge to Peace 154
Imminent Peril 155
A Framework for Survival 158
Clearing the Fields 172
Preventive Diplomacy 177
Traditions, Values, and Humanitarian Action 186
Technology for Humanitarian Action 189
The Pulse of Humanitarian Assistance 190
Even in Chaos 192
More With Less 194
Books by Kevin M. Cahill, M.D. cited in this Section 198

Part Four: Personal 203
God and My Life 204
The Influence of Yeats 208
On Being Short 226
Suffering and Pain 227
A Medical Student's Impressions of India 229
It Ain't Necessarily So 230
Romance and Reality 234
To Bear Witness 246
"For Your 65th" by Kathryn Cahill 250

Editorial Reviews

"It would be difficult for a biographer to weave together the many strands in the remarkable life of Kevin Cahill...He has practiced as a physician in the most impoverished, strife-torn, diseaseravaged parts of the world, and devoted much of his life (and considerable powers of persuasion) to humanitarian causes all over the globe. These essays, by turn elegiac, lyrical, funny, tender, nostalgic, and vehemently impassioned, come together in an ongoing tapestry, a portrait of a dedicated physician who has dared to make a difference."-Oliver Sacks, M.D.

"Dr. Cahill makes a powerful argument that humanitarian action and preventive diplomacy are far better prescriptions for peace than military intervention. He writes not as an academic or think tank pundit but as a physician who has been tending patients on the front lines of misery for over half a century. To Bear Witness is an important contribution to the search for a less violent 21st century."-Michael J. O'Neill, Former President, American Society of Newspaper Editors

"Humanitarian affairs as a subject of intellectual study, and in the creation of practical policies, has emerged over the last two decades as one of the key issues in international politics. In this evolution Kevin Cahill has made, and continues to make, a very important contribution. A notable humanitarian, he draws from his personal devotion to patients, his worldwide knowledge of medicine, his skills as a health administrator, and his scholarship, writings and love of literature."-Lord David Owen, Former Foreign Minister, United Kingdom

From the Publisher

“It would be difficult for a biographer to weave together the many strands in the remarkable life of Kevin Cahill…He has practiced as a physician in the most impoverished, strife-torn, disease-ravaged parts of the world, and devoted much of his life (and considerable powers of persuasion)
to humanitarian causes all over the globe. These essays, by turn elegiac, lyrical, funny, tender, nostalgic, and vehemently impassioned, come together in an ongoing tapestry, a portrait of a dedicated physician who has dared to make a difference.”

Oliver Sacks M.D.

Humanitarian affairs as a subject of intellectual study, and in the creation of practical policies, has emerged over the last two decades as one of the key issues in international politics. In this evolution Kevin Cahill has made, and continues to make, a very important contribution. A notable humanitarian, he draws from his personal devotion to patients, his worldwide knowledge of medicine, his skills as a health administrator, and his scholarship, writings and love of literature.”

Former Foreign Minister, United Kingdom - Lord David Owen

Dr. Cahill makes a powerful argument that humanitarian action and preventive diplomacy are far better prescriptions for peace than military intervention. He writes not as an academic or think tank pundit but as a physician who has been tending patients on the front lines of misery for over half a century. To Bear Witness is an important contribution to the search for a less violent 21st century.

Past President, American Society of Newspaper Editors - Michael J. O'Neill