Here is her response. Read on, and I will tell you. It all started when I was accepted into the PIMS program in 1979. After studying French in Quebec, Canada, and tropical medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, I arrived in Zaire ready to start my first doctor job. We see some of the poorest of the world's people.
Most people make a living by subsistence farming, and it is a hard-scrabble life.
All of my patients are women. It is a real joy to take care of most of them. In a way, the women are like atheletes because they walk tens of miles every day, carrying heavy loads on their heads and a baby on their backs. They are very sturdy individuals, without an ounce of fat on them usually. The morning after a cesarean section or a hysterectomy, they have usually gotten up out of bed and taken a shower before I even get to the hospital.