David R Shlim MD traveled to Nepal in 1979 to volunteer at a high-altitude rescue post near the base of Mt. Everest, a decision that profoundly changed his life. After three seasons at the rescue post, he moved to Kathmandu in 1983 to become the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic, the world’s first destination travel medicine clinic. The research carried out at the clinic changed the practice of travel medicine around the world, and Dr. Shlim went on to serve as the President of the International Society of Travel Medicine.
In 1984, Dr. Shlim offered to provide free medical care to a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery near Kathmandu even though he had never been there. He met the head lama, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, which was the start of fourteen years of personal tutoring in Tibetan Buddhism. The combination of training in Buddhism and running an extremely busy clinic allowed Dr. Shlim to see how Buddhist training was helping him to be a more compassionate doctor. The effect was so profound that he wondered if this type of training could help other Western doctors.
In 2000, after moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Dr. Shlim invited Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche to teach a conference on Medicine and Compassion, the first time in history that a Tibetan lama had directed Buddhist teachings on compassion to a non-Buddhist audience of medical professionals. Dr. Shlim recorded this conference, and a subsequent conference two years later and edited the teachings into the book, Medicine and Compassion, published by Wisdom Publications.
Dr. Shlim is also the author of the forthcoming memoir A Gentle Rain of Compassion. Dr Shlim reveals the details of his personal tutoring in Buddhism and his gradual exposure to mysteries and hard-to-explain events that he personally witnesses. For all the readers who dream about what it might be like to travel to the Himalayas and achieve a genuine spiritual connection, this book is the story of how that dream can come true.