Naina_Marbus
Active member
How a young doctor from New York is whisked away to India to care for Mother Teresa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD9RI2Bm69U
A podcast is available here: http://themoth.org/posts/episodes/1302
Partial Transcript:
(in the words of the doctor involved)
Part 1:
It was a Saturday afternoon, in September 1989, and I was home alone unpacking boxes, when the phone rang.
And a woman that I did not know started to interrogate me: Are you Dr Lombardi, Are you Dr George Lombardi? Are you an infectious diseases specialist? Did you live and work, and do research in East Africa? Are you considered to be an expert in tropical infections? Would you consider yourself to be an expert in viral hemorrhagic fevers?
At this point I paused and I gathered myself and I asked the obvious question: who are you?
She introduced herself and said she was the representative of a world figure and a Nobel Laureate, someone who was suspected to have a viral hemorrhagic fever, and she was calling to ask if I would consult on the case.
I found this highly improbable. I was 32 years old, I had just opened my office, the phone never rang, I had no patients. In fact I remember staring at the phone, trying to ‘will’ it to ring!
But she persisted, and she mentioned that she had gotten my name from a colleague of mine who had told her to call "Doctor Lombardi, who knows a lot about very weird things".
She arranged a conference call and in ten minutes, I was transported through the telephone wires to a small hospital in Calcutta, India, where I found out for the first time that the patient was Mother Teresa and on the line were her two main Indian doctors.
We chatted and discussed the details of the case for about an hour and though those details are now hazy to me, what came through the static-ky wires was their deep abiding concern for their patient.
These guys were worried, I wished them well as I got off the line and I went back to unpack some boxes.
She called an hour later, she said that "they were very impressed by what you had to say and they'd like you to go to Calcutta. I'm making the arrangements; I can get you out tomorrow afternoon on the Concord for the first leg".
I said this is impossible as I had just discovered my passport in one of these boxes and I told her it expired three months before.
She said "That's a minor detail (laughter). "Meet me in front of your building tomorrow morning Sunday at 7AM".
Unless you can probably surmise I'm somebody pretty much does what he is told!
- to be continued as Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD9RI2Bm69U
A podcast is available here: http://themoth.org/posts/episodes/1302
Partial Transcript:
(in the words of the doctor involved)
Part 1:
It was a Saturday afternoon, in September 1989, and I was home alone unpacking boxes, when the phone rang.
And a woman that I did not know started to interrogate me: Are you Dr Lombardi, Are you Dr George Lombardi? Are you an infectious diseases specialist? Did you live and work, and do research in East Africa? Are you considered to be an expert in tropical infections? Would you consider yourself to be an expert in viral hemorrhagic fevers?
At this point I paused and I gathered myself and I asked the obvious question: who are you?
She introduced herself and said she was the representative of a world figure and a Nobel Laureate, someone who was suspected to have a viral hemorrhagic fever, and she was calling to ask if I would consult on the case.
I found this highly improbable. I was 32 years old, I had just opened my office, the phone never rang, I had no patients. In fact I remember staring at the phone, trying to ‘will’ it to ring!
But she persisted, and she mentioned that she had gotten my name from a colleague of mine who had told her to call "Doctor Lombardi, who knows a lot about very weird things".
She arranged a conference call and in ten minutes, I was transported through the telephone wires to a small hospital in Calcutta, India, where I found out for the first time that the patient was Mother Teresa and on the line were her two main Indian doctors.
We chatted and discussed the details of the case for about an hour and though those details are now hazy to me, what came through the static-ky wires was their deep abiding concern for their patient.
These guys were worried, I wished them well as I got off the line and I went back to unpack some boxes.
She called an hour later, she said that "they were very impressed by what you had to say and they'd like you to go to Calcutta. I'm making the arrangements; I can get you out tomorrow afternoon on the Concord for the first leg".
I said this is impossible as I had just discovered my passport in one of these boxes and I told her it expired three months before.
She said "That's a minor detail (laughter). "Meet me in front of your building tomorrow morning Sunday at 7AM".
Unless you can probably surmise I'm somebody pretty much does what he is told!
- to be continued as Part 2
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