LETTERS TO IVANA FROM CALABAR

By Stacey B. Day MD

Subjects:

Description: The text is the first volume of letters to his wife from Calabar (they extended over a two year period) and were written at a time when communication facilities in West Africa were very poor. Even telephone communication with Lagos, the capital city of Nigeria, was extremely poor. Letters could take not merely days but WEEKS between passage of a letter and its receipt in the world extant. This situation led to virtual isolation from informed news. These letters witness changes in the writer's life that brought contrasts associated with anxiety and risk in his determination to introduce into medical education in Nigeria a broader understanding that passed beyond pure academic methodology and enhanced the concept of the patient as a person; SELF HEALTH and SELF HELP. The writer brought the BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL CONCEPT to Calabar and introduced it into the curriculum of the Medical School. The letters cover every aspect of University Life; Work in the BUSH and RAIN FOREST, and in the SAHEL, at LAKE CHAD. They describe disease and life of the rural people in a region once called the "WHITE MAN'S GRAVE".