Triage: The Dilemma of Dr. James Orbinski

Although James Orbinsky received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 while serving as president of Doctors Without Borders, he has always been wary of working with the established political order. But as head of Dignitas International, an NGO he established himself, he cannot avoid all contact with that establishment because he needs it for funding. is the portrait of an engaged, cautious and somewhat self-satisfied man who was involved in a number of aid efforts in Africa. Now that Orbinski is writing his memoirs, which he has dedicated to his young children, he returns to some of those places: Somalia, Rwanda, and former Zaire (now Congo). He finds that the societies there are anything but on the right track, but puts his hope in the fact that there are people "who don't walk away, who don't turn their backs on their communities." In addition, he urges the Western world to get involved, saying that "We are responsible." Horrifying memories come to the surface, of the terribly wounded people he had to treat in abominable conditions and the extensive personal dangers - dozens of colleagues died during these aid efforts. As Orbinski puts it, "It was no medical safari."