The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 F O C U S O N M E D I C A L D I P L O M A C Y M EDICAL D IPLOMACY AT W ORK IN 1950 S N EPAL hen the World War II-vintage DC-3, piloted by a bearded Sikh, landed on a dirt airstrip atop a cliff near Kathmandu in October 1952, I began a medical mission as profoundly challenging as it was important. Nepal’s existence as a closed, private domain of the maharajas had come to an end just two years earlier, and for the first time in over 100 years outsiders were being allowed in. When the new king asked the United Nations for assis- tance in developing a democracy, the United States responded affirmatively. The U.S. Public Health Service assigned me, with eight other American team members, to live and work in this remote, mysterious country. There was no W H OW AN A MERICAN M.D. AND HIS TEAM BROUGHT MODERN MEDICINE TO A REMOTE AND MYSTERIOUS LAND FROM WHICH OUTSIDERS HAD BEEN BARRED FOR 100 YEARS . B Y G EORGE M OORE , M.D., M.P.H., AND B ERWYN M OORE Roy Scott