A criticism we heard recently from a residency program director in New York was that when his residents head to JFK airport to practice global health work in a remote area in Haiti, they pass several poor communities with limited health care on the drive over that would love their commitment. From where the global health movement has emerged, this criticism is very relevant. (more…)
Our goal is to create a beloved community and
this will require a qualitative change in our souls
as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We see difficult things here. This is true. One of our patients is a prisoner who was brought to our hospital yesterday. The guard who brought him in shackles him to the metal part of the bed, and then disappears. We have no way to unshackle him. The prisoner is confused, with a very high fever. His right ankle is shackled to the bed, and his body rotates like a door around the hinge which is his ankle. In his confusion he rotates off the bed and face plants into the not so clean floor. We lift him up and the nursing staff attempts to change the sheets that are soiled. They are inevitably soiled far faster and more efficiently than any response this hospital can muster. (more…)