Where There Is No Doctor

I mentioned about this book, Where There Is No Doctor, in my blog post yesterday. This is probably one of the most useful books I ever used in my life so far. I had to give my copy back to the Peace Corps after I COS (Close of Service) back n July, 1999. During my two year service in Kazakhstan, I think I read this book in it’s entirely every month that I volunteered there.

The book came in handy during my last months in Karatau, Kazakhstan, my Peace Corps site. I was outside my room trying to fix a broken window. All of a sudden, part of the broken glass pane fell on my left hand. It was bleeding quite heavily. I remember my host sister, Gulzhan, freaking out which is something Kazakhs never do. Luckily for me, since I read the book over and over again, I remained calm, opened the book on serious cuts, and proceeded to care for my injury. Actually, I should have read more carefully, at the part where it mentioned about disinfecting and cleaning the wound, I then stopped and disinfected my cut with rubbing alcohol. I went back to the book and the next line mentioned NOT to use rubbing alcohol since it will create a scar. If you all look at my left hand today, You will see a one inch white scar. Whoops 🙂

Overall, even in Vietnam, I think this is an excellent book to have. You can purchase it at the Hesperian Foundation website or download it for free from their website as well: http://www.hesperian.org/publications_download_wtnd.php. If you can afford it, I recommend buying a copy to support the efforts of this nonprofit organization.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in translating this book into Vietnamese?

Edited: Sorry, I guess the book has already been translated into Vietnamese:

http://www.hesperian.org/publications_translation_detail.php?$selectedLanguage=Vietnamese

It does not seem available in Vietnam yet.