My first posting with Médecins Sans Frontières was in northern Uganda, not long after Idi Amin had been driven from power. For those who don’t know him: Amin was a brutal dictator whose eight-year rule left the country scarred by violence, fear, and neglect. His shadow still loomed large, and the hospital where I was sent — in Moyo, on the Sudanese border — was little more than a crumbling shell. We worked with what we had: simple operations, endless deliveries, and rows of sick children. There was no electricity, and my predecessor had left before I arrived, so I learned my patients by reading the thin paper charts clipped…