JUST ONE

In this memoir, a doctor recounts a decadelong tenure delivering medical care to refugee children in underdeveloped countries.

In 2011, pediatric infectious disease physician Akhras (“one of only 1,500 in the United States”) was invited to join three other doctors on her first medical mission to Syrian refugee camps in southern Turkey. With her optimistic husband Amjad’s blessing and his quick decision to join her, both leapt at the chance to participate. The ensuing ordeal (along with subsequent medical care journeys to Greece in 2016) would change their lives emotionally and spiritually, with this memoir recalling her experiences in vivid, heartbreaking, and sobering detail. Each doctor-patient encounter with an ailing child is revisited with intricate consideration, bringing readers to the bedsides of mass-evacuated refugees. Akhras tended to children suffering with possible cancer remission, severe bronchitis, and malnutrition and dealt with families who’d walked for 40 hours to get to the “hot and filthy” refugee camp. All of these stories stuck with the author as reminders of her capacity to aid the sick but also of her gratefulness for the fortunate stable life, family, and country she enjoyed back in America. As a mother of four, Akhras realized that her parenting journey very much factored into her decision to embark on a vocation where international travel and hazardous conditions were ever present. These dangers included intensive political warfare that erupted in southern Syria during her first year there as well as her choice to continue with a planned trip to Yemen while newly pregnant. Alongside the vivid portraits of the refugees she met at the camps, the author delivers historical details about Syria’s unrest, its turbulent civil war in 2011, and the protests that ensued. She also addresses revelations about her own past as a refugee and grimly remembers living a fearful life in post–9/11 America as a Muslim woman whose name was atop airport security terrorist watch lists. In addition, she is unapologetically opinionated when discussing rampant misogyny in medical settings and the “rise of right-wing extremism, which includes the disdain for refugees,” that she feels has been further fueled by former President Donald Trump. Despite the book’s bumpy, nonlinear timeline, Akhras’ humanitarian work makes for a rewarding and immensely fulfilling reading experience.

An exquisitely moving journey featuring compassionate medical intervention in refugee camps.