Book description
Recounting medical missions in half of the thirty countries in which
she has worked for the past twenty-five years in Africa, Asia, and the
South Pacific - from Darfur in Sudan to Papua New Guinea and Bhutan -
Dr. Gretchen Roedde shares the grim reality of world politics and
bureaucratic red tape on the front lines as a doctor in mother-and-child
health and HIV/AIDS.
A Doctor's Quest
tells the stories of the hopes of village women struggling to give
birth safely, their often corrupt leaders, and countries trying to bring
evil despots to justice. The book analyzes the slow progress in global
maternal health, contrasting the affluence of the few with the
precarious hold on survival of the world's poorest, where economic
realities force families to sell young girls into marriage at the age of
thirteen to face higher risk of death from early child-bearing.
"A Doctor's Quest
offers a roller-coaster ride on a voyage into far-flung and sometimes
dangerous territory, with thrills, spills, and occasional joy along the way."
Gretchen Roedde has worked as a public health doctor in nearly thirty
countries in the developing world for the past quarter-century,
specializing in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS. She worked for the
United Nations Population Fund in Ghana and Papua New Guinea to assess
and promote progress in maternal health and has also been involved in
projects for UNICEF in Botswana, World Vision in Bangladesh, and Rotary
International in Malawi. Dr. Roedde lives in Haileybury, Ontario.
