"A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa"
By Rich Fisher • May 2, 2017
Aired on Monday, May 1st.
Our guest on this edition of ST Medical Monday is Tony Bartelme. He is a senior projects reporter for the Post and Courier (of Charleston, South Carolina), and his new book is a nonfiction study called "A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa." As was noted of this book by Kirkus Reviews: "[Here is] the story of an American brain surgeon in Tanzania and the work he has done to develop surgeons in the East African country. In 2006, Dilan Ellegala, a Sri Lanka-born American citizen and gifted neurosurgeon, took a sabbatical at a missionary hospital in Haydom, Tanzania. His plan was to clear his head, practice a bit of medicine, and perhaps figure out what he wanted from his career and life. Immediately, he understood that he had entered a completely different world. Tanzania, a country of 43 million people, had only three neurosurgeons, and other specialties were similarly lacking. Ellegala knew that he could not fill the gap himself and that relying on visiting doctors was insufficient. So he decided to teach Emmanuel Mayegga, an assistant medical officer, how to conduct brain surgery. It was a risky gambit, but it seemed to work. Within a few years, Mayegga had gone to medical school and trained a protégé, who in turn trained his own protégé. Ellegala started a nonprofit based on the principle that Tanzanians should be primarily responsible for providing medical care to their countrymen.... Bartelme, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist...tells the story of Ellegala and his personal and professional triumphs and struggles. The author writes fluidly and clearly admires his subject even as he acknowledges Ellegala's flaws.... This is a fine book about a devoted doctor attempting to help Tanzanians help themselves. A highly inspirational story about sustainable global health measures."
Jose Ramos-Horta, Former President of Timor-Leste, Talks to the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations
By Rich Fisher • Sep 21, 2016
On this edition of ST, we speak with Jose Ramos-Horta, the former president of Timor-Leste (a/k/a East Timor) in Southeast Asia. Ramos-Horta also chairs the U.N. High Level Independent Panel on U.N. Peace Operations, and he was a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Peace. He recently gave an address to the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations entitled "U.N. Peace Operations: Have They Really Brought the World Closer to Peace?" -- and he stopped by our KWGS to speak about this when he was here.
"Nigeria and South Africa: Two Faces of African Democracy"
By Rich Fisher • Apr 18, 2016
On this installment of ST, we hear from a career foreign service officer about the two largest democracies in Africa, each dealing with conflicts that will continue to have consequences for the U.S. Our guest is Ambassador John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. (Previously, from 1975 to 2007, Ambassador Campbell served as a U.S.
ST Medical Monday: "Maternal Health Care Is Disappearing in Rural America"
By Rich Fisher • Mar 14, 2017
Ian Waldie Getty Images
"The disappearing maternal care problem is common across rural America. Only about 6 percent of the nation's OB/GYNs work in rural areas, according to the latest survey numbers from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Yet 15 percent of the country's population, or 46 million people, live in rural America.
ST Medical Monday: "No Map to This Country: One Family's Journey through Autism"
By Rich Fisher • Aug 22, 2016
On this edition of ST Medical Monday, a discussion with Jennifer Noonan, a Texas-based mother of two who is the founder of thegfcflady.com, a website for autism parents.
ST Medical Monday: "What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear"
By Rich Fisher • Feb 6, 2017
We are joined on this edition of StudioTulsa Medical Monday by Dr. Danielle Ofri, an associate professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine who has cared for patients at Bellevue Hospital for more than two decades. Her previous book was "What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine," and she joins us to discuss her new book, which follows up on that one.
The Janada L. Batchelor Foundation for Children: A Tulsa-Based Agency Offering Relief to East Africa
On this edition of ST, we speak with Chris Gates, who is CEO of the Tulsa-based Janada L. Batchelor Foundation for Children, or JBFC, a nonprofit that works to provide aid to, and combat extreme poverty in, East Africa. As noted on the JBFC website: "Janada Batchelor is JBFC Founder Chris Gates's grandmother. The organization carries her name because she is the woman who introduced Gates to Tanzania in 2002.