There is now a book based on the material in these blogs. Please follow the link below, but feel free to browse here anyway. 

The new site is:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15702038-band-aid-for-a-broken-leg

https://www.amazon.com/Band-Aid-Broken-Leg-Doctor-Borders-ebook/dp/B00C5J6Z8K

Thanks for stopping by. The entries posted here during my time working with Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, have ended up providing the raw material for what's now - after three years of writing - this book, 'Band-Aid for a Broken Leg: Being a Doctor Without Borders, and Other Ways to Stay Single.' 

All images below relate to the stories of the people that feature in the book, but I've regrettably removed much of the accompanying text due to overlap with the published work. That said, the first chapter can be read online by clicking here. 

The book is a true story of my time in the field, and I hope that it'll be seen not as an endorsement of any one organisation, nor a rebuke, but rather for what it is: a tale about some extraordinary people I met - people who just happen to live in extremely difficult circumstances. In the words of the publishers, it's  'A powerful, heart-breaking, surprisingly funny, honest and ultimately uplifting account of life on the medical frontline, and a moving testimony of the work done by Medecins Sans Frontieres and the extraordinary and sometimes eccentric people who work for it.'

It's available from most major retailers (and minor ones, too!) in both ebook and paper formats, and reviews can be found here, and here, while my bald head can be seen talking away about volunteering - and more importantly how to prepare for it - in this Reuters clip. If you'd like to contact me, I have an active Facebook page, and I also Tweet occasionally when I can remember how to login. 

Anyway, that's enough plugging. Please browse, enjoy the images in these pages, and get in touch if you'd like to know more. 

Cheers!

Sudan pics

Top to bottom: Daily workout; check out the mohawk!; my newly-renovated tukul with veranda (until i got promoted to the house); skyline; elderly man; local fish market.

Sudan pics 1

Top to bottom: Net fishing next to the compound; local "Oakley's"; water-point outside the surgical ward; a beaming young boy who arrived unable to stand or walk - who likely got better in spite of rather than because of treatment, but who cares - check out that smile!; mum's relaxing with kids outside the feeding centre for mlanourished kids.

Mozambique pics

Top to bottom: transporting goods up the river for a distribution to camps, elderly man weaving straw, crossing flooded land, fisherman with (rather undersized?!) fish, young girls outside the clinic trying to show me how to dance.

Top to bottom: curious kids in rural Mozambique, fishing - a popular use for a mosquito-bednets, doing nutrition check on a clearly slightly over-nourished baby!, view out the window on the drive to work in the morning, dudes at a swimming hole, where's wally.

sticker thieves

Note for the unwary - this is why you should never turn your back on the sticker supply in an Emergency Department in the Northern Territory. Accomplished thieves clean out Tennant Creek ED....

Mavinga Photos 5

They let me out to play for a few days in Luanda, the Angolan capital... I never imagined a supermarket, sit-down toilet, newspaper, bed (NOT supplied by Guantanamo Bay Outfitters as i suspect my last one was), and hot shower could bring so much joy....

Photos below are of Mavinga and the projects there.

In order:

the water project, 2 typical scenes of the town here, a 'permanent' patient (an albino woman) with unfortunately common skin cancers who lives in a tent behind the hospital, myself and the rest of the exapt staff pretending to work c/o photoshop (this delighted our local staff to no end!), skyline at night, young girls at the river, 3 kids in the window of the shelled-out old school in town, old bomb in the new market, next 2 photos of patients in the malnutrition ward (mostly their families), me in my trendy new Mu-Mu, our anti-mine car, me in the cockpit of the charter flight out to Mavinga, one of the cooks in the hospital kitchen looking like a rock-star, adults ward at the hospital, fetching buckets of water at sunset with the cart, a Russian cargo plane drops off our supplies (after almost landing on our Co-ordinator - read below), high school in town, the two subjects of 'My Brothers Keeper' below...

Love to hear from home, wherever that may be to you.

Email: msfch-mavinga-sat@geneva.msf.org

Please put subject: damien brown

Mavinga Photos 3

Mavinga Photos 2

Mavinga Photos 1