(NPR) – “Without it, he will have a devastating end of life,” says Dr. Marco Lee, past president of the Western Neurosurgical Society. “When your breathing starts to go, it’s like this constant feeling of drowning.”

That would have been Abibu’s fate before this year, but today, he is at Connaught Hospital under the care of Dr. Alieu Kamara, the first and only neurosurgeon in Sierra Leone. After starting his practice at the beginning of January 2025, Kamara carries the neurosurgical disease burden — traumatic injuries, spinal paralyses, seizures, brain tumors — of an entire country of eight million people. (Read More)