NPR

Faced with COVID and monkeypox, new USAID leader draws strength from African proverb

Dr. Atul Gawande delivers a speech in 2015. In January 2022, he became the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development's work in global health.

Dr. Atul Gawande began a challenging new job this year. The surgeon, former New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of books like Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is now the head of global health for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides foreign and humanitarian aid around the world.

So far it's been quite a daunting year.

The pandemic has of course continued and cases are now surging in many countries. Then there's the worldwide monkeypox outbreak, the potential global repercussions of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe

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