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Hope in the Balance: A Newfoundland Doctor Meets a World in Crisis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Dr. Andrew Furey, an orthopedic surgeon, was sitting by the fireplace at his home in St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, watching TV after work, when dreadful images of the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti burst in on the cosy domestic scene. Human suffering on an epic scale was being documented in real time. Dr. Furey spent a sleepless night, and woke knowing he had to help in some way. In what has been a theme throughout Newfoundland and Labrador's history, he found himself answering the call.
Dr. Furey formed a team of three--himself; his wife and pediatric emergency room physician, Dr. Allison Furey; and orthopedic surgeon Will Moores--and together they travelled from to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where they spent a week volunteering. The challenge seemed a multitude of badly injured victims, horrendous working conditions and overstretched aid agencies. But somehow the trio did not lose hope. Instead, they redoubled their efforts.
After returning from that first mission, Dr. Furey founded Team Broken Earth--an expert, unbureaucratic, fleet-footed volunteer task force of physicians, nurses and physiotherapists committed to providing aid in Haiti. The organization has continued to grow, recruiting volunteers from all over Canada. It has carried out many more missions to Port-au-Prince and has expanded its operations to other countries like Bangladesh, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. And its mission has expanded in other ways, with education and training for local medical professionals now at the heart of its endeavour.
Dr. Andrew Furey tells the story of Team Broken Earth's founding and remarkable work with vivid immediacy and raw honesty. He shares his doubts and failures and moments of near-despair. He explores how his Newfoundland and Labrador upbringing has informed his efforts abroad. And he reaches an optimistic conclusion that will leave readers inspired to bring about positive change in their own lives.
Dr. Andrew Furey, an orthopedic surgeon, was sitting by the fireplace at his home in St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, watching TV after work, when dreadful images of the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti burst in on the cosy domestic scene. Human suffering on an epic scale was being documented in real time. Dr. Furey spent a sleepless night, and woke knowing he had to help in some way. In what has been a theme throughout Newfoundland and Labrador's history, he found himself answering the call.
Dr. Furey formed a team of three--himself; his wife and pediatric emergency room physician, Dr. Allison Furey; and orthopedic surgeon Will Moores--and together they travelled from to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where they spent a week volunteering. The challenge seemed a multitude of badly injured victims, horrendous working conditions and overstretched aid agencies. But somehow the trio did not lose hope. Instead, they redoubled their efforts.
After returning from that first mission, Dr. Furey founded Team Broken Earth--an expert, unbureaucratic, fleet-footed volunteer task force of physicians, nurses and physiotherapists committed to providing aid in Haiti. The organization has continued to grow, recruiting volunteers from all over Canada. It has carried out many more missions to Port-au-Prince and has expanded its operations to other countries like Bangladesh, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. And its mission has expanded in other ways, with education and training for local medical professionals now at the heart of its endeavour.
Dr. Andrew Furey tells the story of Team Broken Earth's founding and remarkable work with vivid immediacy and raw honesty. He shares his doubts and failures and moments of near-despair. He explores how his Newfoundland and Labrador upbringing has informed his efforts abroad. And he reaches an optimistic conclusion that will leave readers inspired to bring about positive change in their own lives.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published October 13, 2020
6 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 6, 2021
A true Canadian hero.
August 26, 2021
This story is an extraordinary journey but it seems so practical and pragmatic as if 'What else could he have done?' that it just seems natural. A crazy progression of circumstances and medical solutions and folks willing to help 'for a week'... And what an amazing amount of help that turns out to be. A medical team from Newfoundland, Canada, made an initial treatment trip and every idea, solution, building plan, volunteer enlistment, and collaborative effort and local contact was built from there.
Maybe we cannot change the world but we can change one persons world... fix one leg, fit one pair of glasses, treat one emergency gun shot wound and that one person will have their world made a little more hopeful. Ease that one persons suffering and maybe they will be the one to grow up and provide the missing critical leadership, medical knowledge, something.
Simple and yet astounding and very human.
Maybe we cannot change the world but we can change one persons world... fix one leg, fit one pair of glasses, treat one emergency gun shot wound and that one person will have their world made a little more hopeful. Ease that one persons suffering and maybe they will be the one to grow up and provide the missing critical leadership, medical knowledge, something.
Simple and yet astounding and very human.
February 25, 2023
An extraordinary book. I had the pleasure of experiencing this on audiobook, which I highly recommend; the vivid details of far-flung locales, the grinding and relentless poverty witnessed by the author, and the nail-biting moments of life-and-death medical decisions that will either save or lose lives is best recounted from the voice of the man that experienced them.
Somewhat uniquely, I am also a Newfoundlander, as is the author. In fact, at the time of my writing this review, Doctor Furey is our current Premier, leader of our province. I will spare any opinions on his politics or job performance as irrelevant to the review of his book, other than to state that his somewhat dreamy-eyed recollections of our shared home island rings with just the slightest traces of manufactured nostalgia. While he is very accurate in his descriptions of our geography and culture, he does not spend much time recounting that, in some ways, Newfoundland has faced issues that the locations that he has visited have as well; extreme poverty, neglect, and a profound sense of hopelessness. It has all never fallen to the levels that exist and existed in places such as Ethiopia and Haiti which he visited, however there is a tendency on his part to dismiss Newfoundland's historical systemic issues while he waxes poetic about kitchen parties and how everyone is so very friendly, a fallacy if there ever was one.
Nevertheless, those gripes aside, which I acknowledge partially stem from two different people who view Newfoundland from two different sides of the same coin, this is a breathtakingly great book. Furey writes in an introspective prose with a downright humble demeanour in the face of events and issues that should have seemed insurmountable obstacles in his establishing Team Broken Earth. Growing it from three Newfoundland doctors volunteering their time in the face of the devastation of Haiti's 2010 earthquake, to it's adoption as a model of effective care for multiple teams across Canada and his expansion into other troubled countries beyond Haiti, is a fascinating and often uplifting read.
The reader follows along as Furey cobbles together the barest essentials in order to save lives, like a medical MacGuyver. He doesn't dwell long on superfluous details, preferring instead to establish the tone and tenor of his tales of sweat-filled days and nights of doubt plagued by guilt at not being able to help everyone with details readers will relate to; a single light bulb serving as the only surgery room illumination. Having to read x-rays not by tacking them to a light box in a hospital but by holding them up to the sun.
There are moments the reader will become overcome with emotion; I sure did. The simple yet powerful displays of decency, dignity, and humanity Furey and his teams display leaves a Newfoundlander proud of what he did but also awed, to borrow his own father's words, at 'how' he did it. Every patient he speaks of become characters in the reader's minds and when their stories end, as they sometimes do, far too abruptly, the reader will mourn them. Just as the reader becomes the biggest cheerleader of Furey and his successes and of those he and his teams saved.
The linear style of pacing, with the odd digression or two into recollection, effectively draws in the reader and provides a bird's eye view of the events as well as insight into just what it takes as medical professionals, and as human beings, to comprehend the scope of the issues and demands they must attend to. This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man.
One of the finest reads I have ever had; if one is from Newfoundland then I recommend this book for it's stories of hope and help from one of our own. And if one is not from Newfoundland, I recommend it as well as it tells a heartfelt story of families, devotion and how one man can make a difference.
Somewhat uniquely, I am also a Newfoundlander, as is the author. In fact, at the time of my writing this review, Doctor Furey is our current Premier, leader of our province. I will spare any opinions on his politics or job performance as irrelevant to the review of his book, other than to state that his somewhat dreamy-eyed recollections of our shared home island rings with just the slightest traces of manufactured nostalgia. While he is very accurate in his descriptions of our geography and culture, he does not spend much time recounting that, in some ways, Newfoundland has faced issues that the locations that he has visited have as well; extreme poverty, neglect, and a profound sense of hopelessness. It has all never fallen to the levels that exist and existed in places such as Ethiopia and Haiti which he visited, however there is a tendency on his part to dismiss Newfoundland's historical systemic issues while he waxes poetic about kitchen parties and how everyone is so very friendly, a fallacy if there ever was one.
Nevertheless, those gripes aside, which I acknowledge partially stem from two different people who view Newfoundland from two different sides of the same coin, this is a breathtakingly great book. Furey writes in an introspective prose with a downright humble demeanour in the face of events and issues that should have seemed insurmountable obstacles in his establishing Team Broken Earth. Growing it from three Newfoundland doctors volunteering their time in the face of the devastation of Haiti's 2010 earthquake, to it's adoption as a model of effective care for multiple teams across Canada and his expansion into other troubled countries beyond Haiti, is a fascinating and often uplifting read.
The reader follows along as Furey cobbles together the barest essentials in order to save lives, like a medical MacGuyver. He doesn't dwell long on superfluous details, preferring instead to establish the tone and tenor of his tales of sweat-filled days and nights of doubt plagued by guilt at not being able to help everyone with details readers will relate to; a single light bulb serving as the only surgery room illumination. Having to read x-rays not by tacking them to a light box in a hospital but by holding them up to the sun.
There are moments the reader will become overcome with emotion; I sure did. The simple yet powerful displays of decency, dignity, and humanity Furey and his teams display leaves a Newfoundlander proud of what he did but also awed, to borrow his own father's words, at 'how' he did it. Every patient he speaks of become characters in the reader's minds and when their stories end, as they sometimes do, far too abruptly, the reader will mourn them. Just as the reader becomes the biggest cheerleader of Furey and his successes and of those he and his teams saved.
The linear style of pacing, with the odd digression or two into recollection, effectively draws in the reader and provides a bird's eye view of the events as well as insight into just what it takes as medical professionals, and as human beings, to comprehend the scope of the issues and demands they must attend to. This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man.
One of the finest reads I have ever had; if one is from Newfoundland then I recommend this book for it's stories of hope and help from one of our own. And if one is not from Newfoundland, I recommend it as well as it tells a heartfelt story of families, devotion and how one man can make a difference.
August 19, 2021
“To realize your time on earth is not about you, but rather is about making those around you better, fighting to make the place better than you found it.”
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“I believe that contentment is found in the simplest of things. A card from a friend. A smile to a stranger. And the love we give and get through charitable acts, great and small. We’re all better for it when we see the goodness and the opportunities it brings. We must always strive to choose that. To not see walls but find the doors. Easier said then done sometimes, I know.”
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“As odd as it sounds, I actually owe the critics a debt of gratitude. Why? Because progress is made by doubt. It makes you ask important questions. It shows you the gaps. Doubt makes you seek answers. It reassures you. It makes you better at what you do. Doubt everything. I say, because the end result will be that much more solid. So, a thank-you is in order for the criticisms. Thank you for inspiring, the necessary reflection and the confidence to know we are moving in the right direction.”
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Hope In The Balance by Andrew Furey is about an orthopedic surgeon together with his wife and friend travelled to Haiti for a week of volunteering. After returning from that first mission in 2010, Team Broken Earth was founded to provide aid to Haiti. At some point, this book did resonate with me that doctors, just like teachers, are not trying to change the world, just someone’s world.
▪️
▪️
“I believe that contentment is found in the simplest of things. A card from a friend. A smile to a stranger. And the love we give and get through charitable acts, great and small. We’re all better for it when we see the goodness and the opportunities it brings. We must always strive to choose that. To not see walls but find the doors. Easier said then done sometimes, I know.”
▪️
▪️
“As odd as it sounds, I actually owe the critics a debt of gratitude. Why? Because progress is made by doubt. It makes you ask important questions. It shows you the gaps. Doubt makes you seek answers. It reassures you. It makes you better at what you do. Doubt everything. I say, because the end result will be that much more solid. So, a thank-you is in order for the criticisms. Thank you for inspiring, the necessary reflection and the confidence to know we are moving in the right direction.”
▪️
▪️
Hope In The Balance by Andrew Furey is about an orthopedic surgeon together with his wife and friend travelled to Haiti for a week of volunteering. After returning from that first mission in 2010, Team Broken Earth was founded to provide aid to Haiti. At some point, this book did resonate with me that doctors, just like teachers, are not trying to change the world, just someone’s world.
September 10, 2021
Imagine having a provincial Premier (Newfoundland’s) who’s a doctor and involved in humanitarian medical work ever since his conscience drove him to help in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake! Furey subsequently founded Team Broken Earth, which organically grew to encompass teams of doctors from many communities in Canada, and even from the University of Massachusetts, and which evolved to having a teaching role in Bangladesh and Nicaragua as well as an on-going role in Haiti. Interwoven among the traumatic scenes he’s witnessed in some of the poorest countries of the world are his own personal story, very much shaped by Newfoundland, and reflections on the duty we all owe to the larger world. It’s a book I needed to read at this time because it’s genuine and pragmatic and Furey is thoughtful about the role that hope plays in all this.
December 20, 2024
[Audiobook] While the events in this book took place a good few years ago, I’m writing this review on the day that the TBE hospital in Haiti sustained damage from rebel gangs. That’s heartbreaking for everyone who has worked so hard to keep it going and for all the patients and their families. Anyway, I went into this book thinking (somewhat cynically) that it would be the type of book that an aspiring premier would write. After finishing, I don’t think I’m wrong. But I’m perhaps not as cynical because it was actually a good listen. I enjoyed the random segues into NL/family amongst the tales of Haiti and Bangladesh. The audiobook expired before I could finish, so I read the last couple chapters. Interestingly, I found the book makes much more sense being read aloud by the author. Reading it felt a bit jarring. In any case, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.
November 28, 2020
This compelling book shares the making of Team Broken Earth, how it went from an idea of how to help with the desperate situation in Haiti, to an organization with worldwide reach. It's heart-wrenching but also full of hope. This was a really inspiring story, so glad I read this.
March 18, 2021
Truly an amazing story of what a caring person’s determination and hope can achieve. As a health care worker I found the details extraordinarily inspiring ... and I remember to feel grateful for our blessings here in Canada during every hospital shift.
September 14, 2021
This book makes me want to get on a plane. I’m not sure in which direction, home to Newfoundland, or with my scrubs on heading to Haiti. So beautifully written and a reminder of why we do what we do as healthcare workers.
January 27, 2021
Great story and honest perspective.
June 2, 2021
Awesome book
June 12, 2021
Inspiring story of the Nfld MD who travels to Haiti after the earthquake to help and eventually creates a multinational medical aid organization. Amazing!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews