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Patricia Simpson is a doctor in the French organization called Medecins sans Frontieres.

Translated into English , this means Doctors without Borders . These [1] doctors travel anywhere in the world , sometimes to very unsafe places , to help people in need . Patricia is Canadian but she has spent most of her life working [2] in countries like Malaysia , Iraq , Somalia , Lesotho and other troubled areas . I asked Patricia why she chose to do this work . She answered that the work is very exciting and she loves the travel and [3] . Of course , she also likes the feeling that she is doing useful work . She said she doesn´t do it for the money; she earns only $700 a month , much less than she could earn as a doctor in Canada . When I asked her if it was difficult to be a woman doctor , she said that in some other parts of the world men didn´t like taking [4] from a woman . But in Africa she said she had no problems because the Africans are used to [5] women!

Patricial likes Africa but she faced the most difficult time of her whole life recently in Rwanda . As you know , there was a terrible war in Rwanda . The ( 6 ) [6] of one tribe was killing anyone who didn´t belong to their tribe , even old people , mothers and children . She described how every day thousands of sick , tired and hungry people [7] in a place called Goma after a long walk from the unsafe areas in Rwanda . At the Goma camp every family was given food , clothing and [8] , but the big problem was water . There wasn´t enough for the thousands of people to keep clean . As a result , people started dying from cholera . Patricia worked hard to save people but every day hundreds died of the disease , many of them young children . She worked from morning to night but there were too many . She and the other Medecins sans Frontieres workers couldn´t save them all . Sometimes , in those dark days , she [9] herself for not working harder to save more . She feels that this difficult experience changed her [10] to life . ´I realized that all of us can die very easily ,´ she says , ´and we all need each other .

--adapted from an article in Cosmopolitan magazine , December 1994

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