"CDC Level 4 Virus Hunters" Report

     Wow, talk about a page-turner! I read much of this book on the plane to Amsterdam, and even though everyone around me was sleeping, I had no problem staying awake to read “Level 4 Virus Hunters of the CDC” at least until it was clear that my reading light was bothering those around me trying to sleep! For anyone on the fence about entering a job in public health, wondering about what constitutes a public health job, what it takes to work in underdeveloped countries, or curious as to how culture plays into international health efforts, this is a great book to read. As we were leaving the CDC, I kept wondering how it’s possible to carry out such large missions while also keeping the cultural aspect in check(by not offending people or having distrust). In fact, I remember thinking of that on day 1 at the museum tour. In this book I have a proposed response to that curiosity!

In this book, we get to follow Dr.Joseph McCormick and Dr.Susan Fisher-Hoch in their work in the field for the CDC, and as nearly each chapter takes place in a different country, many examples of cultural differences took place. In working with my group during the book discussion, we talked about the fact that it’s only possible to overcome these cultural differences properly if the guest to the culture is optimistic, creative, diplomatic, flexible, and, most importantly, open-minded. Well, in this book, from the first page, it’s clear that Dr.McCormick and Dr.Fisher-Hoch not only agree but possess all of these qualities. Whether they’re negotiating their way out of having to pay off a border policeman or trying to figure out how to best interview skeptical community members, the doctors impressed me in how culturally aware and adaptive they were. They treated the populations as people, and not just as statistics.

While we were at the CDC, Melissa, our host, told us about how it as a field worker it is imperative that there exist a sort of detachment from the cases so as to prevent mental health crises on the part of the investigators; I observed this in this book as well, when the doctors described the symptoms of each disease(whether it was Ebola, Legionnaires', or Lassa fever) in a very scientific manner. I wonder if they described the diseases in that way because they wanted to protect themselves from re-living the realities of the human side of the diseases, and also to protect the readers from being too disturbed and/or turned off from public health!