Karin Huster

The diagnosis — delivered at a distance of 6 feet in the doctor's office — was a shock. It brought back memories of my work in the Ebola ward. Then as now, an intimate touch was a rare thing.

A health worker who spent a year in West Africa during the epidemic shares lessons from the field. And wonders if we learned from them.

"And now," the public health officer murmured apologetically, "here is the bad news."

I did not need any bad news.

For the past six weeks, I'd faced daily deaths in the Ebola Treatment Unit in Sierra Leone where I'd been working as a nurse, a seemingly losing battle with the ...

I found her curled up in the fetal position on the ground, under a piece of cardboard wet from the rain, breathing quietly. Dried blood all around her mouth. Naked. Most likely she had stumbled from her ward in the middle of the night, making it past the gates meant ...