A true hero...

The men of war get all the attention. Whereas people like this deserve it.

A former head of Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, Dr. Carlo Urbani's idea of a vacation before he died on March 29, at age 46, was hiking Africa with a backpack full of medicines.

Working in Hanoi as director of infectious diseases for the Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization, Urbani's rapid instigation of strict quarantine procedures among healthcare workers is being credited with saving many lives and shutting down Vietnam's first outbreak of SARS.

When chided by his worried wife for working with such high-risk patients, Urbani is said to have replied, "If I can't work in such situations, what am I here for? Answering e-mails, going to cocktail parties and pushing paper?"

The patient who infected Urbani with SARS is said to have infected 80 people, including more than half of the health workers who cared for him. Tragically, Dr. Urbani died of SARS roughly one month after first treating the man.