NAIROBI,Kenya Feb 1-In his book Escort-In-Chief, physician and neurologist Dr Bundi Karau pulls back the curtain on medicine, offering readers a rare, honest account of what it means to walk alongside patients through illness, uncertainty and hope.
The book traces the patient’s journey through the eyes of a doctor, capturing the daily struggles that define clinical practice. It lays bare the doubts, ethical dilemmas and mental calculations that occupy a physician’s mind, while confronting a central paradox of modern healthcare: that medicine, despite its life-saving intent, remains an imperfect science.
Dr Karau argues that this imperfection is not a failure of effort, but a consequence of the extraordinary complexity of the human body. Human anatomy and physiology, he notes, interact in ways that science is still struggling to fully understand, while diseases alter these systems through countless pathways, often unpredictably.
Beyond personal reflections, Escort-In-Chief places disease within a broader historical context. The book walks readers through how humanity has understood and treated illness over time, offering insight into how far medicine has come and hinting at what the future may hold as research and technology evolve.
Importantly, the book also serves as a practical guide. It equips readers with knowledge relevant to life-or-death situations, pandemics and prolonged suffering, while helping patients and families better prepare for medical encounters. In doing so, Dr Karau seeks to narrow the gap between doctors and the communities they serve.
At its core, however, Escort-In-Chief is a meditation on gratitude and chance. Through case stories and reflections, the author challenges the tendency to blame patients for their illnesses. Many diseases, he reminds readers, arise from random mutations or predispositions that science has yet to unravel.
“Out of ten smokers, only one may get lung cancer and not necessarily the chain smoker,” the book notes.
This uncertainty, Dr Karau suggests, should encourage people to live fully in the present and to be grateful for each waking day.
Dr Karau brings formidable academic and clinical credentials to the work. He was the top candidate in the 2002 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Human Anatomy, a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, a Master of Medicine in Internal Medicine, and a PhD in Human Anatomy (Neurosciences), all from the University of Nairobi.
He later completed a subspecialist fellowship in Neurology at St John’s Medical College in Bangalore, India. In addition to Escort-In-Chief, he is the author of The Journey to Academic Success and Beyond, a motivational book that continues to guide high-school and college students.
Currently, Dr Karau serves as a Senior Lecturer in Internal Medicine at Kenya Methodist University, an Honorary Consultant Physician at Meru Teaching and Referral Hospital, and Chief Physician and Neurologist at Oregon Health Services. His research interests lie in clinical neurosciences, a field in which he has published extensively.
Away from the ward and lecture hall, Dr Karau journals his travels on social media and blogs, hoping his reflections might inspire others a habit that mirrors the reflective, humane tone that runs through Escort-In-Chief.
