Urgent calls from distant places:
An Emergency Doctor’s Notes about Life and Death on the Frontiers of East Africa
Marc-David Munk, MD
Published Globally, with New Content
by HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Mid-2026
"Buy It"
Kirkus Reviews
An enthralling portrait of high-wire emergency care performed under the most trying circumstances...The author’s gripping, evocative prose conveys the adrenalized pressure of emergency care...The result is a true-life medical drama that combines tense heroics with mordant reflections.
Quarter-Finalist
2023 Publisher's Weekly
Booklife Prize for Non Fiction
9.75/ 10
"Munk evokes the chaos and flurry of Africa’s larger cities alongside the desolation of desert landscapes, all in expert prose that smoothly transports readers into another world. He renders accident scenes in raw, sometimes disturbing spaces, an echo of the tragedies he witnessed during his time abroad, but just as powerful are his reflections on hard-won healings...Munk’s ability to draw out the tender moments of his experiences and juxtapose them with the stark reality of his medical work in often-dire circumstances lends this memoir originality and magnetism."
Booklife
“Prepare yourself for harrowing tales of daring landings on tree-lined dirt runways, emergency medical care rendered under the blazing African sun on patients at the verge of death, eye-opening insight into the longstanding effects of colonialism on East Africa, and one doctor’s profound journey of self-discovery and what it means to humble oneself in the service of others. Marc-David Munk brings the East African Flying Doctors to life in his thrilling and insightful memoir, Urgent Calls from Distant Places. An outstanding read! I highly recommend."
Dr. Jay Wellons: author of All That Moves Us (voted one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and Publishers Weekly.)
"Urgent Calls From Distance Places is not only a powerful and dramatic portrait of medical relief work in rural Africa, it’s a deeply-felt and utterly accurate critique of the cruel moral failings of American healthcare as well. Marc-David Munk is seeking the essential in medicine regardless of where one is in the world, and approaches his story with humility, a synthetic intelligence, wisdom, and an ultimately affirming reverence."
Dr. Frank Huyler: author of The Blood of Strangers, White Hot Light and Right of Thirst.
“...this book is an absolute home run. One of the best books I have read by a physician writer ever. It is a series of vignettes about his time as a flight physician in Africa. It combines the perfect mix of medicine, culture, religion, socioeconomics and geopolitics of the region. Wow…just pure wowness.”
Dr. Louis Profeta: author of bestselling book, The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God
“This memoir is a brilliant record of the experiences of one humble physician searching for meaning... the altruistic human spirit exemplified by Munk somehow thrives and provides sophisticated brief care to those whose needs are unimaginable. The writing style and humanity and sensitivities of the author lead to an unforgettable read."
Paul M Paris MD., F.A.C.E.P., LLD(Hon): Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Best travel book. Indiereader Discovery Awards
Category finalist for best memoir. Eric Hoffer Award.
Quarter-finalist for best nonfiction book. Publisher's Weekly Booklife Awards.
"The history of the region, the challenge of treating patients with sometimes obscure tropical diseases, the selfless service of so many local workers who provide care in resource poor settings—and many other topics—are all discussed by Dr. Munk in a candid and empathetic way. I found myself nodding in agreement to many of his observations, and I was impressed by his ability to capture the essence of remote medical care so accurately.
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Gregory H. Bledsoe, MD, MPH
Former Surgeon General for the State of Arkansas, Chief Editor of Expedition & Wilderness Medicine
"This first book with numerous quick read vignettes of emergency medical calls will surely capture and intrigue any reader. The text is rich with medical adventure, and stories that will touch one’s mind and heart… Munk is able to engage diverse individuals from around the world in a sophisticated fashion. Only a handful of physicians have the combination of knowledge, skills, and attitude to take on this kind of unique work and to craft the many wondrous stories in Urgent Calls. A fabulous read."
Dr. Walt Stoy
Professor Emeritus, former Director of Educational and International Emergency Medicine at the Center for Emergency Medicine
“The core elements of humanistic medical practice are woven throughout, but the frank, unadorned nature of much of what we as physicians do in that practice is not hidden or disregarded…. the narrative was accurate and honest but always in balance … [Urgent Calls from Distant Places] is a major contribution to telling the unique stories of a life well-lived in the practice of the healing art we know as medicine.”
Dr. Ron Stewart OC, ONS
Professor Emeritus, Former Minister of Health for Nova Scotia, Named a ‘Hero of Emergency Medicine’ by the American College of Emergency Physicians
"A different take on East Africa, from a flying doctor's perspective. Beautiful, scary, violent but filled with human empathy and warmth....A harsh story with heart-warming moments of humour, humanity’s shared suffering and the dedication of people who care."
Reedsy Discovery
"...with succinct and beautifully crafted prose. Urgent Calls from Distant Places is an inspiring and deeply moving book.."
IndieReader
Winner, Best Travel Book
2024 Discovery Awards
About Urgent Calls from distant places
In 2008, during an in-between time in his life, a young American doctor sends an unsolicited email to the famed AMREF Flying Doctors Service in Kenya. He asks if they needed an experienced physician for a few months, to staff air rescue flights.
The doctor is at a personal crossroads, disillusioned with impersonal corporate medicine. He needs time and space to ground himself and to re-evaluate his vocation.
Miraculously, there is an opening.
He soon arrives at the Nairobi airport with a duffel bag of clothes, a stethoscope, and a laptop to write a blog for friends. The next morning, he is in an air ambulance bound for the Tanzanian bush.
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Readers join the doctor and his team on twenty different flights to eleven East African countries, to rescue critically ill and injured patients. Supported by a logistics and risk management crew, the team flies to such hostile areas as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The doctor treats patients with bullet wounds, malaria, parasitic tropical diseases, routine heart attacks and overdoses. Along the way, readers learn the doctor’s unconventional path to medicine and his internal wiring and motivations.
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Each chapter of the book details a different rescue. The medicine is complex and fascinating, but even more engaging are the people, geographies, and political situations that the team encounters. The reader meets filmmakers, refugees, albinos, NGO volunteers, Ugandan soldiers, US snipers, herders from ancient African tribes, Kenyans having psychotic breaks, and average tourists on safari experiencing the worst day of their lives.
Excerpts
"The airliner was filled with a mix of African businessmen in shiny suits; worn-out UN workers in khakis and Oxford cloth shirts; evangelicals, who had prayed in a huddle and held hands before boarding; excited National Health Service nurses, home for a visit; and a gaggle of Germans in sensible shoes whom I guessed were headed for safari.
We had crossed the Kenyan frontier in darkness and begun the descent toward Nairobi’s Kenyatta airport. Only when the city lights appeared in the distance did I suddenly feel ill at ease, uncharacteristically anxious about this trip.
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About Marc-David Munk, MD
Marc-David Munk is a palliative medicine physician and former healthcare executive. He cares for patients at Tufts Medical Center and teaches at Tufts University School of Medicine, both in Boston.
Munk graduated from Colgate University with a BA in philosophy and religion and completed an MPH in international health at Boston University. After graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, he completed residency training in emergency medicine and a clinical fellowship in international health at the University of Pittsburgh. He later completed a fellowship in palliative medicine at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Munk holds an MS in healthcare management from Harvard University.
Urgent Calls from Distant Places is his first book.
