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"We've been invited to witness a bonfire of marijuana by the Taliban. Anyone interested?"
Amid the missionaries, mercenaries and misfits drawn to the world's most dangerous and volatile hotspots stands Dr John Parker.
From Cholera to Ebola is a captivating collection of true stories 25 years in the making.
Whether challenging the bureaucracy of refugee camps to cradling children as they died, Dr Parker operated far from his comfort zone, from the norms of medical practice and from the decencies of humanity.
His is a life that swung from heartbreaking hopelessness to sheer ecstasy as he battled PTSD to chase his next 'fix' over increasingly dangerous missions.
"There are some things you cannot be taught; you have to live them."
About the author
Dr John Parker was born and bred in Liverpool, UK and medically trained at Edinburgh University. He came to Australia to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef and never returned. He commenced a medical practice in Airlie Beach in Queensland to follow a passion in diving medicine and later worked at Golden Beach in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. Intermittently he has ventured with the Red Cross and MSF on humanitarian medical missions including 3 war zones, 2 epidemics and several refugee camps. More recently he has worked as SMO in the refugee detention centres on Nauru, Manus Island and Christmas Island, medical officer in an Ebola Treatment Centre in Sierra Leone and spent a year as an expedition medical officer on Davis Station in Antarctica. He is presently working on Thursday Island in the Torres Straits. He has written 'The Sports Diving Medical" and "Poetic Prescriptions for Feeling Good".
