Surviving Against All Odds

About the Book

This book tells about the fate of the members of a middle-class family and their breakup by circumstances beyond their control. It speaks of their adjustment, or lack of it, to emigration, culture shock and their relation to emigrant society. It tells of their struggle for survival while practicing medicine in the primitive countryside of Ecuador and learning to get used to the local culture. Finally the blending into USA's way of life contributing to public health, tuberculosis control and to racial integration while attending to poor patients in minority neighborhoods. It is a tale of a life lived to the fullest in spite of obstacles, disappointments, surprises, deprivations, but ultimately satisfactions and rewards.

About the Author

Dr. John Meyer grew up in a Jewish family in Berlin. Because of Nazi takeover he emigrated to Italy in 1933, then to Ecuador in 1939 and finally in 1949 to the USA. He lives in Chicago's Indiana suburb.