Customer Reviews

La Doctora: The Journal of an American Doctor Practicing Medicine on the Amazon River

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an inspiring book that's a pleasure to read. It gives the reader the vicarious enjoyment of being part of a noble endeavor. In an age of "road rage" and the obsessive accumulation of more and more things (which often do not make us happy), it's exhilarating to experience a taste of Dr. Linnea's life.

Dr. Linnea shows us how one can give up almost all the material possessions and creature comforts of the modern world and still find meaning, happiness, and personal fulfillment. Dr. Linnea has created for herself a significant life. A life with much to teach a troubled world.

While missionaries have long sacrificed themselves to serve God, win the eternal salvation of lost souls, and earn a place in the pantheon of saints, Dr. Linnea does it for the pure humanity of the effort. Goodness is indeed its own reward in this Amazon outpost.

Because of Dr. Linnea's "wonderful life", many lives have been enriched and some even saved. More importantly, countless hours of suffering have been alleviated. This is the most humane thing: ending or reducing pain. We all have to die but we shouldn't have to suffer or endure years of pain when a cure is available. Dr. Linnea provides the cures that often would not be provided otherwise.

She treats the sick and asks nothing in return; she allows her patients to keep their personal integrity; she respects their beliefs; she grants them respect and maintains their dignity; I think this could be called love.

On the surface, this book is about a one woman medical practice hidden in the Amazon rain forest. Beneath the surface, however, it is about finding meaning in a world that too often seems to be without meaning. Dr. Smith's "life-example" has the power to let you view your own life differently; perhaps with a clearer insight. With one brave decision, everything can change. For Dr. Smith and thousands of her patients, the change has had life-sustaining significance.

I felt a similar elation reading this book that I experienced when the US Women's Soccer Team won the World Cup. I was proud that our young women could show the world such excellence in a non-American sport. What else would this generation of young American women do in the future now that they saw what they could do? It is the power of their "example" that is so exciting. I stood and cheered in the privacy of my living room.

Dr. Linnea is such an example, as well. She's one of our own; a human we can be proud of -- a human we would gladly point to if Extra Terrestrials came to earth and wanted to interview an exemplar human being for the Encyclopedia Galactica. Better yet, she is in "real time"; she is alive and still "on-mission". You can be a part of her life. You can support her efforts. You can even bring her medicine if you visit the Amazon -- as some adventurous tourists do. You can visit her website (run by her relatives in the USA.)

As a bonus, the book is very well written and designed. It is also moderately priced.

La Doctora demonstrates the best in mankind. The message is optimistic; the ending, happy. Reading it may make you happy. And maybe, as in my case, it may make you want to stand and cheer as you finish the last page.

Keep up the good work Dr. Linnea and please write a sequel. Feeling good and feeling proud and feeling optimistic is definitely worth the price of admission.

It wasn't so long ago that I had the privilege of meeting Linnea in Peru. She was just coming back from a fundraising journey to the States, where she received a prize of recognition for her selfless work in Amazonia. I was with a tour group that was to stay at several Amazonian jungle lodges. The Amazon was in it's annual flood stage and the only way any of us could get around was by small boat. La doctora Linnea had her own dugout which she paddled to and from the clinic, the lodge and her patients all by herself, in a dress. She wore skirts almost entirely because of the humidity and local custom. The only women who wear shorts or pants in Amazonia are tourists and scientists. Every evening Linnea would come to the lodge for a bit of relaxation and conversation with whomever was staying there, but one couldn't help but notice how more comfortable she was in the company of the locals and guides. The Ribiernos [local river dwellers] didn't ask rude or probing questions. They were friendly without conpromising her privacy.This ingrained need to keep part of herself to herself comes through in the book she's written. She's happy to talk about her work and her love of the people, but reveals little of her previous life. I recommend this book for the incredible story, the sense of place, to learn about people we would otherwise never know. She may not speak book-learned Spanish, but communicates fluently with her friends and patients. As she writes, she arrived in Peru speaking no Spanish.

As the author of a book about the same region, HIDDEN AMAZON, I found Linnea Smith's book fascinating. From Wisconsin, Linnea tells why she has gone to the Amazon (she's still there) and how she feels about the conditions, the jungle, and the people. Perhaps most instructive is her detailed account of the medical conditions she encounters and how she treats them under the most primitive conditions. She works, lives, and eats at Explorama Lodge, a popular stop for trekkers in the area. This is one of the few jungle lodges with a doctor on the staff. And LA DOCTORA is one of the best books about the rain forest and its medical services.

To be honest, I was a little hesitant buying this book. I've read about 15 books on the Amazon and I thought this just might be another recap of the same journeys that I've read about. This was not the case at all. Once I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. It was so well written, it kept me glued to every page. I couldn't help reading page after page to see what was going to happen next.

I have visited the area that the author was working in and her story made me feel as though I was back in the jungle with her, experiencing all that she wrote about. I felt connected to her and the way she viewed the U.S. after vacationing in Peru. Although she doesn't come right out and "badmouth" the US, she does point out just how many comforts we take advantage of. She eludes to the emptiness we feel as Americans, having every material possession known to man, and still being unhappy. She discusses her hesitantcy to leave her American life behind in pursuit of a dream that seemed crazy at in point. In the final analysis, her story is a perfect example of how one person can make a difference.

This is a light-hearted and easy read. I am a physician who enjoyed the medical aspects of this fellow physician's adventures, but it can easily be enjoyed by non-medical readers as well.

I met La Doctora just as the book was being written. (I believe it was ghost written, which is probably not unusual.)

Jackie and I spent a few days at Explorama and talked at some length with Dr. Linnea. This book is not embellished in any way. This is an accurate account of life in that part of the world.

Her descriptions of places were perfectly clear to me, since I've been there. It's hard to know how these descriptions will play out in the mind's eye of other readers. The beginning of the book was particularly fascinating.

Our face-to-face meeting left me with the impression that she is not trying to run away from society, not trying to crusade for the underprivileged, not trying to be "holier than thou". She really likes what she is doing. The book confirms this.

When you read this book you are looking inside La Doctora. Nothing is hidden. There are no pretenses. She is simply good people.

Incidently, she wanted the book named "At the River's Edge" and the publishers wanted "La Doctora". The publishers won.

Linnea Smith's story captures you from the very beginning. Telling of her experiences as a physician in the Amazon jungle often keeps you on the edge of your seat. Taken directly from her journals, it discusses her experiences over a 7 year period of practicing medicine in the jungle without all the current medical technology. She also talks of the natives, their beliefs and some difficulties encountered because of the disparity of cultures. This book is an easy and enjoyable read.

This is somewhat of a minority viewpoint in comparison to the previous five customer reviews already written. I read this book because of the local publicity it received here in Wisconsin, the fact that I have been in Peru and in Amazon region (though not the same part as Dr. Linnea), am interested in Latin American culture, and speak fluent Spanish.

Dr. Linnea doesn't. The one complete Spanish sentence in the book contains a major grammar error that most students wouldn't make mid-way through their first semester of college Spanish. Of the isolated Spanish words she uses, she gets a couple wrong. She can be forgiven for this. She obviously managed to communicate adequately with her patients and she's a physician, after all, not a linguist. I'm aware this seems like nitpicking, and this is not my reason for a mere 3-star review.

What I find lacking in this book is emotional engagement with the reader. I liked this book passably, but wanted to like it so much more. Dr. Linnea is really the only character in it and she seems to be a rather private person. She gives us her opinions much more than her feelings. Maybe this is typical of the majority of physicians. We never really get to know her patients or any other person in the book. If she develops close relationships, we don't learn of them. Some patients improve and survive, some die, but it's a bit like a catalogue of people who barely have names or faces and come through her office (or she goes to them). I'm also interested in medicine and geography in general, and a book in a similar vein, that of a doctor practicing "backwoods medicine" that is truly wonderful (and that I'd hoped this one would resemble) is Dr. Abraham Verghese's MY OWN COUNTRY. (He treats AIDS patients in Appalachia in the mid-1980s.) Perhaps he's atypical in the way he becomes personally/emotionally involved with his patients or in the way that he is able to put human faces and lives on a disease and write about it all. Dr. Linnea, in spite of being a wonderful person who has done dangerous, extremely outstanding work, is not able (or chooses not) to do what Verghese did in his book.

Unlike another customer who reviewed this, I definitely don't think this was ghost-written. Dr Linnea is right there, revealing not one iota more than she wants to. I think the "problem" can be seen right in her acknowledgements, when, regarding her publishers, she writes that they "gave me unlimited latitude in what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it." Sorry, but this book needed much more editorial guidance. She's a physician, not a professional writer, and though this effort is quite passable, it could have been so much better.

The book is informative, educational up to a point, gives a good perspective on "jungle" medicine" vs. the US mainstream practice thereof, and is culturally sensitive. (Though at one point I winced, when she said that the inhabitants, almost all of whom live in abysmal poverty, "seemed happy." This made me think of 19th century slaves in the US who, many contended "seemed happy.") There are a few funny moments, especially when Dr. Linnea describes w/ dead-on accuracy her encounters with the Peruvian bureaucracy, redtape and corruption.

All in all, well worth reading, but don't expect great emotional engagement or gripping human drama.

I met Dr Smith last month at her new clinic while vacationing on the Amazon River. This book was especially meaningful since we were in many of the places she talks about. I can understand completely why she came to the region for a vaction but never left. Her book provides a beautiful insight into the Amazon region and it's people. The Peruvian people in the Amazon, have very little by American standards, but they appear to be very content and happy with the lives they lead. And she chronicles this beautifully in her book, both the positive and the negative aspects of practicing, with very little equipment or supplies.

She provides, from an outsiders perspective,the problems with practicing medicine not knowing the language and have to go thru so much 'red tape' to get the supplies and the Peruvian medical degree needed to legally treat the people she cared about.

Fortunately she has been able to develop a great support system in Wisconsin, people who are able to acquire the supplies needed to built and outfit her new clinic. She is a testament to the medical profession, one who practice for the love of it after falling in love with one of the most beautiful areas of the world.

A fantastic diary of a doctor making a real difference in the lives of people who had only the 'medicine men' of the Amazon...

It was wonderful to finally read this book after visiting Linnea's clinic a couple of years ago. Her story is fascinating and is one I find myself telling people about. Linnea has a great sense of humor and an amazing ability to adapt to conditions and be creative. Here is a woman who is working hard on adapting to a different culture while being true to herself and saving lives and making lives better in the process.