KENNETH KAMLER, MD is a surgeon who also climbs mountains. He was team doctor on three expeditions to the top of Mount Everest, including the disastrous 1996 trip. Kamler is both storyteller and advisor in his book, Doctor on Everest: Emergency Medicine at the Top of the World A Personal Account including the 1996 Disaster. Blackened limbs due to severe frostbite were the least of his troubles: I-V fluids are frozen solid, and abrasions cannot heal at such high altitudes. Kamlers day job is Director of the Hand Treatment Center in Hyde Park, New York, where he is a microsurgeon. Hes done research on telemedicine for NASA and Yale Medical School.
Copyright 2001 Fresh Air