Travel Narratives
People fascinate me. Perhaps that is why I love working as a GP. When I travel, I always want to ask questions and know what life is really like for everyone I meet. Sadly, I am not much of a linguist but I smile and gesticulate a great deal and make the effort to communicate. Given enough time, it is remarkable how connections can be made
I explore, try to understand and write about difficult issues including corruption, prejudice, exploitation, caste and poverty. I know that for some this makes uncomfortable reading and even risks demystifying and undermining the image some travellers have of the simple natural existence of the rural poor in emerging nations. Nevertheless I fervently believe these issues should be understood by all who travel so my aim is to present the facts as sympathetic engaging stories about real people. I am frustrated by the look-and-point approach to travel, but I hope I don't preach. I write of my adventures and enthusiasms and of colour and beauty so that my readers can enjoy my travel experiences as much as I do.
Travel Health Guides
Within minutes of arriving in the sleepy town of Khairpur in Sindh, I was faced with a medical crisis. I'd been qualified as a doctor for a few years but was new to expatriate life, and I was travelling with my firstborn, three-month-old son. A guy who was expecting to work with my husband announced that he needed to be evacuated because he was desperately ill. I introduced myself as a GP and offered help. Quickly I realised that my new friend was not suffering from some horrendous tropical pox but that he just had a nasty attack of sinusitis. It made him feel awful with frontal headache that recalled having a screwdriver rammed into his eyeball. Labelling it with a diagnosis made it less scary, though, and we found that the correct antibiotics were readily available over the counter in the local bazaar. By the next day my patient was well on the way to recovery.
That was the first time I really had to think about travel health. What this, my first real travel medicine ‘case’, made me realise is that even the calmest and most sensible of travellers will nearly always become disproportionately worried about themselves when taken ill. In my friend’s case, he didn’t know much about the local health service and didn’t know where he could find a doctor he could trust. He just wanted to get home to his friendly British GP. That experience showed me how liberating and empowering information can be and motivated me to start writing accessible straightforward travel health advice. I began work on a manual that was distributed amongst expatriate engineers, and soon after wrote my first travel health feature for Wanderlust magazine. It was - of course - on diarrhoea.
50 Camels and She's Yours
What an excellent book - full of adventurous amazing stories. Highly recommended. I really enjoyed reading it.
SE
A Glimpse of Eternal Snows
Reading A Glimpse of Eternal Snows you can almost smell the spicy samosas and feel the dusty heat-haze of the Rajapur bazaar in the western terai of Nepal where Jane, a zoologist and GP, spent almost three years living with her husband and two (and then 3) small children. But more beautiful than the vivid descriptions of Nepal at its most primitive is the story of their second son, David. David was born with multiple medical problems and when they realise that endless medical tests and treatment are doing nothing for David's quality of life, Jane and husband Simon make the difficult but courageous decision to take David away from the doctors and return to Nepal where they can enjoy their short time with him and where he is seen simply for what he is: a beautiful, happy baby boy.
Rose posted on Fishpond 25/01/2010
Lemurs of the Lost World
“describes the zoological wealth of the caves and forests of northern Madagascar.”
Nature (London)
Your Child Abroad: a travel health guide
“interspersed with light hearted anecdotes which serve to reassure parents that most problems are usually minor and easily dealt with, despite how terrifying they seem at the time.”
Sesame, newsletter of the Scientific Exploration Society