Health Affairs

Health Affairs, 28, no. 4 (2009): 1171-1176 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.4.1171 © 2009 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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Narrative Matters

In The Midst Of Sickness

Alexander McCall Smith

HE IS STANDING BEFORE ME, THIS MAN WHOM I barely know, the employee of somebody I have met. It is a cold day—cold, at least, by the standards of Botswana, although the sky is clear and the air is bathed in sunlight.

"How are you now, Rra?"

My question makes him shake his head. "I am not well. I cannot eat. I am weak, weak."

There is silence. What is there to be said? The gulf between us seems as wide as the very Kalahari: I am a visitor from the impossibly rich West, somewhere far away, in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Optimism, Then Disaster And Heartbreak

 

Portraying Illness

 

Not Turning Away From Suffering

 

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