Reddit reviews Improvising Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic

http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Modern-Beauty-Plastic-Surgery/dp/0822348012 - Less about medicine, more of an ethanography, there was a huge brazilian population where I used to live.

>http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Medicine-Oncology-Emerging-Epidemic/dp/0822353423 - your call, I've read others that are similar in the past (dark african hospitals, mom was a doctor, it came up) but this is apparently more popular now. 10 years ago it was the horror of aids, those books are almost unreadable, if it were any other subject you'd simply have trouble suspending disbelief. http://www.amazon.com/The-Paradox-Hope-Journeys-Borderland/dp/0520267354 is another similar book.

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Shamans-Apprentice-Ethnobotanist-Medicines/dp/0670831379 - Is probably better if you don't want all the doom/gloom view of african medicine.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10235.Mountains_Beyond_Mountains - Figure you've read this, it's highly recommended and extremely popular now, part of the whole 're-imagining medicine' movement.

>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161121.My_Own_Country - Speaking of my mom, she was a doctor near here, it's definitely a different world.

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949 - Read it because of the neuroscience aspect, but I suppose you could consider it a very specialized ethanography of sorts.

Honestly the most popular nowadays is probably the one about the Hmong girl in my first post. I'd recommend it more because I've known a few Hmong and the cultural differences are fascinating.

Chronic illnesses are increasingly problems in "small simple villages" as is diabetes, excessive fats, etc. Coca-Cola is everywhere in the world. Cancer is a multifactorial illness and caused by more than just toxic/synthetic stuffs (AND developing countries have high rates of exposure to toxic chemicals anyways).

Here is a really good book about the absolute horrors of experiencing cancer in a developing country: http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Medicine-Oncology-Emerging-Epidemic/dp/0822353423. There are no advanced treatments. There are almost no oncologists and almost no medicine. Treatment and pain meds are rationed out to the youngest patients. Cancer is not diagnosed as often in low-income countries (mostly due to much lower average life spans and to a lack of screening for the disease), but it exists and it is awful for the people who experience it.

Secondly, please look at the etiologies of maternal mortality. This is a serious issue and cannot be solved in basic clinics at low cost. Women die in childbirth because they get married and impregnated at age 13, because they live in communities that don't allow women to seek medical treatment, because they get no prenatal care, because their genitalia has been mutilated, because they start hemorrhaging and live 5 hours from a hospital, because they need a c-section and live in a country with zero operating theatres, etc, etc.

Further, there are very few people in developing countries who can live by just gathering food for a few hours a day. Agriculture is a labor-intensive process. Odds are the typical person in this situation wouldn't be slaving 50 hrs/week -- they'd be slaving away for more.

Look, I love this story, and I love the overall message, but the point is not that people in developing countries have an idyllic life free from the horrors of modern development. That philosophy does a disservice to the very real struggles that billions of people experience.