The Lassa Ward

Starred review from March 9, 2009
Donaldson is a medical cowboy, chasing viruses in Africa, but also a UCLA medical prof and ER doc. This book is a wild and extraordinary memoir of his 2003 summer in Sierra Leone as a naïve medical student studying Lassa fever (a close cousin of the Ebola virus). Donaldson gives passionate and powerful reportage on a struggling clinic treating villagers and refugees from neighboring war-torn Liberia suffering from the devastating and often fatal illness. What inspired the adventure was the work of Dr. Aniru Conteh (who died in 2004), the hero at the heart of the story, whose Lassa ward served thousands. despite the lack of equipment, medicine and staff. For a week, Donaldson, untried and unsure, was left to treat the desperately ill patients alone—a test that turned a frightened student into a caring, if not altogether confident, young doctor. Despite a slow start, this astounding story of the seemingly insurmountable barriers to public health in a Third World country revs up into an irresistible tale of discovery, courage and kindness.