Brown Alumni Magazine, of Brown University, profiles Dr. Tom, Producer/Director Carlson, and <em>The Heart of Nuba</em>:
“…Carlson talked about seeing Dr. Tom perform seventeen surgeries in one day, including ‘amputations, lacerations, shrapnel removal, and a horrific D&C procedure on a full-term pregnancy.’
“Then, after more than ten hours in the operating theater conducting these “grueling and gruesome procedures” that were “thoroughly exhausting mentally and physically,” Carlson says, “he grabbed a ladder, climbed onto the roof, and not only fixed broken solar panels but cleaned them” so the hospital could function at first light the next day.
“The film includes hair-raising footage of bombings. We see women, children, and men running and piling into the foxholes they have dug around the hospital. A little girl dies and her family grieves. Dr. Tom and others at the hospital shot some of this footage, using a camera Carlson had left with them.
“Never did I think’ says Carlson, ‘that he’d have the wherewithal to grab the camera out of his desk drawer when he heard incoming Sukhois and shoot some of the most harrowing footage of the film!’
“Ultimately, ‘if we can make a difference,’ Carlson says, encapsulating Catena’s belief, ‘and stop this genocidal maniac, then it’s worth having lived this life.”