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Touching God Not many of us have touched part of a living God. Prof. Mike Lean has...  The Lion of Judah, Haile Selassie |
Mike Lean was completing his medical training at Barts Hospital in London when the subject of where to do his elective came up. Mike decided that Ethiopia was the place that he wanted to study paediatrics. His secret reason was that he's a keen bird watcher.
This was about 1975 and Ethiopia was very unsettled. Students who had instigated a successful uprising against Haile Selassie in 1974 were being rounded up and executed.
So the Dean of the University 'hauled him up' and suggested that Hackney was the place to go. Mike stuck to his guns, and having saved up £20, which would keep him going for some months in Ethiopia, he was off.
Mike had a fantastic experience. Resources were hugely stretched; there were around 200 doctors for 25 million people in Ethiopia at the time. He learnt a huge amount about medicine (not just paediatrics) and did see a lot of birds.
And Mike can claim that he is possibly the last man to hold 'Gods own Prostate gland'. Haile Selassie, King of Kings - God of Gods was well into his '80's and very frail when it was decided to remove his prostrate. He'd been deposed the year before by the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.  Haile 3 |
The chap who did the operation was called Asrat. He was a very skilled surgeon, but it was an extremely difficult and dangerous operation. Mike was standing in the wings when 'this huge prostate was handed over'. They put it in the pot, labelled it with the date and put it on the shelf. Mike wonders if its still there.
When Haile Selassie died Asrat had to go into hiding. There was a rumour at the time that he had been smothered during the operation. Mike thinks this very unlikely.
Ethiopia remained a dangerous place. There were curfews at night. Mike got involved in trying to help the students leaders who were being rounded up and shot. Having exposed the fact that Haile Selassie was filtering away the wealth of the country and involved the army, the army turned on the students.
A friend, Bill Morton, Prof of Geology, had a false floor in his van. He enlisted Mike's help to drive students out to the villages where they would be more safe.
 Haile Selassie's funeral |
Luke Albarin provides a footnote to Mike's story:
'Just to feed your appetite for the Lion of Judah... the Emperor died in 1975, and his remains were discovered in 1992, buried under a toilet in his Imperial Palace. He was finally laid to rest in Addis Ababa's Trinity Cathedral, more than 25 years after his mysterious death.
MORE INFORMATION:
A History of Ethiopia includes images of some of the birds Mike was watching
Haile Selassie's funeral BBC News Report on preparations for it
Haile Selassie's State funeralBBC News Report
The Prostate Cancer Charity
Prostate Cancer Research Institute
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