Making it happen – Doctor drops hospital salary to serve African mission

By He Jianwei

Liu Chen-kun, an anesthesiologist and graduate of China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan Province, joined Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in 2008.

For the next two years, Liu worked as a volunteer at six medical missions that put him to work in the most desperate regions in southern Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

Besides providing medical care for patients who lived with few or no doctors, he also served as a mentor for what little local medical staff existed.

Liu Chen-kun (right) works as an anesthesiologist at MSF's mission in southern Sudan. Photos provided by Liu Chen-kun

Liu speaks with excitement and a big grin as he describes his years as a volunteer doctor in Africa.

It would be easy to discount the 34-year-old doctor’s stories, but his thoroughly tanned skin stands out like a badge marking his years of service.

Liu spoke Saturday at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art about his mission to Africa, where he was performing nine to 12 surgeries per day.

“The easiest job was administering anesthetic. That should tell you how many more difficult tasks I had to learn to deal with,” Liu says.

After graduating in 2001, Liu went to work at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Despite a high salary, he was not satisfied with his life.

“I was sick of the routine. Every day there was a morning meeting, a couple of surgeries and then an afternoon of explaining everything to the patients,” he says. “The operating room in the department of gynecology and obstetrics on Floor 8 was the only one with a window. I spent every day wondering what was happening outside.”

Those wonders ended the day he bought the tour book Istanbul to Katmandu at Page One Bookstore in Taipei. He resigned from the hospital and hopped a train to Istanbul from Shanghai.