Medicine captured in photos

In this photograph, a stethoscope is shown plugged into the USB port of a laptop computer. I think this photograph is a good example of medical technology shown in a photograph. Medicine is relying more and more on computers, and this picture portrays the computer as being like a doctor since doctors are the ones that usually wear stethoscopes. It's an interesting picture and I think it portrays the idea of medicine moving more and more toward relying completely on technology if it doesn't already. As far as the actual photograph goes, I think that it uses the principle of thirds, and places the stethoscope laying on the laptop around the intersection of the upper right lines. The picture is also great quality and very clear and crisp and interesting visually because the background is so stark and white.



This photograph depicts two individuals moving a person on a stretcher through some part of Africa. The picture displays the limited technology and resources that many of the hospitals in most of Africa have, and contrasts greatly with the health care facilities and practices in the United States. When you consider the setting that a person is generally in when being pulled on a stretcher in the United States, it is very different from the setting depicted in this photograph. It provides insight into the types of areas where health care has to be delivered in some areas of Africa. As far as the picture quality is concerned, it uses the rule of thirds very well because there are three subjects and they are spaced out well with each one of the thirds. However, unlike the last photograph, the quality isn't as great and photograph seems to be blurry and of lower quality.




This photograph depicts someone administering an innoculation to a young patient in India. The environment of the "doctor's office" is much different than here as can be seen in the photograph. There seems to be a doctor, a nurse, the mother, and another individual looking over the shoulder of the nurse to see what is happening. It seems less formal than in the United States, and it seems that she entered into a room to receive the shot quickly and then leave. As far as the actual photograph, the quality is good and the photograph is clear. However, the rule of thirds isn't so much in play here as it is in the previous photographs. The focus is the little girl getting the shot in her arm, and that is shifted down from the center, but the photograph is crowded and seems to not utilize the principle of thirds very well overall.

All of the photographs discussed portray global health care and medical technology in very different ways. Prior to researching these photographs, I was unsure of how medical technology could be displayed short of entering into a hospital and taking photographs of patients and physicians in countries like India and Africa. The first picture especially offers a more figurative view of medical technology, while the second two display more concrete examples of health care in other areas of the world.

Global Health Care

Unfortunately, beyond what I wrote about two weeks ago, not much information exists about the use of social networking websites in relation to health care around the world. As time goes on, I'm sure facebook and other similar sites will begin to be used for health care purposes, but the chances that it will spread to third world countries is slim, especially anytime in the near future. For this week's blog, instead of writing about social networking, I'm just going to discuss health care policies and systems that exist in other countries. Currently, as I'm sure everyone knows, health care reform is a major issue in the news currently and Obama's bill was just recently signed. Whether you or I agree with his ideas or not, one of his main selling points of the bill was always that so many other countries exist with government-run health care plans and it works out just fine. I decided to explore the health care systems that exist in other countries of the world and see if they are in fact as successful as Obama has claimed them to be. Some of the countries will have these government-run types of plans and others won't, but I think getting a broad range of systems is important in evaluating our current system and the direction our system is headed in due to this new bill.

My first area of focus will be South Africa, as it has been for a lot of my posts so far. In South Africa, there is a quickly growing private section of health care, and a larger public section that is offered to all citizens of South Africa automatically. The public system is incredibly crowded and does not have nearly enough resources to support the population that is using it, according to an article called Health Care in South Africa. In addition, the private area of health care only supports those people who can afford the plans, which tend to be the wealthier classes, health care professionals, and foreigners who want cheaper health care than provided in the United States. According to the same article, public health care serves about 80% of the population while private health care serves only about 20% of the population. Despite this split, most of the 40% spent on health care goes towards the private section. In addition, the public hospitals mostly only have primary care facilities and in order for people to see specialists, they must go to a private hospital which costs substantially more money. I find it interesting that the part of their system that is public is drowning because of the lack of health care professionals to serve the immense number of people utilizing the system. Personally, I feel that the same could ultimately happen in the United States with the new plan in place. There are only so many doctors and nurses, and many hospitals are already overcrowded and professionals are overworked. The bill just passed could result in more overcrowding and inadequate health care being offered just to pass through patients and keep the system moving.

The next country that I will discuss will be India. I've touched on different areas of their health care before, and it was apparent that they are more advanced than many people think they are when it comes to health care and technology. According to an article called Healthcare in India in the 1980s, India's health care system was mostly public and government-owned. Since then, private health care systems have taken over and almost all of the hospitals are privately owned. The hospitals in India are world-class and their medical education is strict and structured and much longer then American medical education. Many people don't know much about health care in India, but it seems that it is advanced and much more private that publicly owned. One of the major things about India health care that struck me as somewhat incredible is that there is little to no waiting time in corporate hospitals for surgeries. It says in the article mentioned above that there is usually an 8-10 day wait for elective procedures from the first contact made with an Indian hospital. This is unheard of in the United States, and I think that it speaks of their high quality of health care and high prevalence of medical professionals.

One more country that I want to touch on more briefly than some of the others is China. While China is a major world power and has a very different health care system from the United States, I don't feel the need to go into too much depth about their system in particular. One thing that I read that struck me as drastically different from any other health care system that I've read about is their complete lack of primary care doctors. According to an article called Healthcare in China even in large cities, there are no primary care doctors offices like you would see here in the United States. Therefore, all patients have to go into hospitals for any type of health concern, and therefore, the hospital in China are overcrowded and chaotic due to the immense population and the concentration of people in the cities. This difference is staggering to me, and I can't even fathom a world without primary care doctors to go to for physicals and check-ups. The article even mentions that there is nothing resembling a real structured appointment system, so people are just expected to show up to the hospitals and wait to be seen for whatever their ailment may be that day. I can't get over the picture in my head of an overpopulated city like Beijing waiting in line at a hospital for a prescription for something as simple as penicillin.

During the research that I conducted for this post, it struck me that often the more advanced health care systems are the ones that have become more and more private over the years. The public health care systems seem to exist and still be alive in countries that are still developing or struggling. The United States is making a transition slowly to public health care, and it leads me to wonder if this is really a step forward for the country as a whole or if it is in fact, a step back.

"Health's Angels"

As I was conducting research for my blog this week about social networking and health care, I came across an organization unlike any that I had ever heard about before and I thought it was interesting and pertinent enough to my topic for me to share it with all of you. In addition, this organization and their mission can be seen as a type of social networking, in a sense that people are coming together and networking with each other to form a larger group to assist in a common goal. While I know that many people consider social networking to be websites and techonlogical, I think that an organization like Health's Angels is a social network within itself. And while this may be a broad interpretation, it's the closest I have been able to come thus far to tying the topic into my personal blog topic.

The organization is called Riders for Health, and was started in 1986 by the Colemans who had been avid motorcycle riders for a number of years. Andrea Coleman, the founder of Riders for Health, had a vision after returning from a trip to Africa and seeing the terrible health conditions that existed in rural areas because of lack of transportation for the people and for medicines themselves. She also realized on her trip that there seemed to be a lot of broken down vehicles in Africa that could be used to help improve health care mobility if people knew how to fix and maintain them. While the organization now works with any types of vehicles, they run them in order to transport medical supplies and ill patients back and forth from hospitals to rural areas. This organization has made significant differences in health care in Africa by substantially reducing the time it takes to transport supplies and people.

Currently, the organization is planning to expand to Malawi and possibly to other nations in Africa eventually. I think it's interesting to look at something that is helping health care improve in other areas of the world that one would never consider. Using the knowledge that she had, Andrea Coleman was able to make a difference by helping to repair vehicles and make them sustainable for the residents of Africa to use in medical situations.

Social networking?

Unfortunately, unlike with the mobile technology blog, I was unable to find much or any information at all about social networking being used in developing countries to assist in medicine and health care. The only correlation that I was able to recognize was the use of social networking sites in the United States to help efforts in other countries regarding health care. For example, the Red Cross utilizes facebook to raise awareness about various health disparities and issues around the world. Other organization also have facebook pages and groups that can be accessed by anyone and can help raise awareness about health care issues in other countries.

Since this was the only information that I could really find regarding health care and social networking, I decided to blog about a few things that I found interesting. I will continue the theme from last week and discuss more about mobile technology and health care in other nations.

First, I wanted to discuss some of the other aspects of mobile technology use in relation to health care and medicine in other countries around the world. There is a program currently in place in Malawi and Uganda that works to provide cheap mobile phones to people and uses text messages to deliver valuable health information to patients. The organization is called FrontlineSMS-Medic and they provided open-source software in order to use cell phones and text messaging technology to deliver information to various patients throughout the rural areas of the two nations. The program allows for people to remain connected to their health care providers in areas where they can't be physically connected. Unlike the aspects of mobile technology being used to assist in improving health care that were discussed last week, this plan gives mobile phones and text messaging abilities to patients themselves rather then just to health care professionals. While it's important for health care professionals to have access to resources and information, patients in rural areas need to have access to the health professionals for it to mean anything and for it to make a difference in their treatments at all.

A completely different aspect of health care and mobile technology that I haven't talked about involves delivering aid, specifically food aid, to Iraqi refugees living in Syria. Instead of being directly involved with health care and medicine, it is involved with allowing people in this area to purchase food. While this isn't medicine persay, it is food that keeps people healthy and able to survive without needing medical care, so I think it is an important part of health care and helping improve the health of people in developing countries. The concept is that text message food vouchers are sent to individuals with the phones. The UN started this program in order to easily and quickly deliver food vouchers to people in developing and war-torn areas so that they are able to exchange the virtual vouchers for food like cheese, eggs, rice, and flour. The information about this particular initiative can be found on this website highlighting Global Health, although there is unfortunately not a wealth of information about it at this point in time.

To conclude the section about mobile technology use and medicine and health care in developing countries, I think that is important to realize that just because countries are developing and are miles behind the United States, it is possible for many people in these areas to have cell phone service and to own a cell phone. Mobile technology use has spread to parts of the world that people would never imagine, and it's crucial to utilize such technologies in this day and age. It's so important to reach the people and health care professionals in these communities, and cell phones provide an instant way to communicate and spread awareness and information regarding health care and personal welfare to people in areas like Africa, India, and Syria.

Mobile Observations

After reading the article, “New Media and Society,” I feel that I have better insight into some of the behaviors of people when friends are engaging in “cross talk” that I never would have necessarily noticed before. I think that most of the observations made still exist today. I know that if I am at a restaurant or anywhere and my friend is engaged in a phone call, I either take out my phone at text someone, check emails, browse the web, or even just make it look like I’m doing something. In addition, I think that people will drink coffee and look around at the surrounding environment so as to not seem awkward and alone while someone else is engaged in conversation that doesn’t include you. While I think that many of the behaviors noted in the article are the same today, I think that one aspect has changed drastically. Now, more than anything else, I feel that people will take out their own cell phones and engage in text messaging or browsing through their phones in order to seem engaged and not appear as a “single.” This idea is discussed in the study but doesn’t seem to be the overwhelming response to cross talk as I feel that it is today.

I think the various terms of the study were pretty comprehensive. I think the idea of cross talk is an important one, as it definitely does happen more and more with increased cell phone use in today’s society. I found the idea of the three-way interactions interesting especially because throughout this week, I have observed this happening once or twice. When the “single” knows the person on the other end of the phone call, it is often true that they will attempt to engage in the conversation based only on the part they hear from their friend. It is interesting to see this occur since they are only hearing half of the conversation and attempting to respond, but it is definitely something that I have observed around campus this week. In addition, the idea discussed about caller hegemony interested me because it is also something that is regularly observable around this campus and everywhere in public. For example, a girl that I was sitting near in Starbucks on Thursday decided to answer her phone even though it seemed like she was engaged in a serious and deep conversations with the person that she was with. It is interesting and somewhat surprising to me that this occurs, but as it was pointed out in the article, it is true that when a landline phone rings, its customary to drop whatever people are doing and answer it. I never really thought about that carrying over into cell phone use, but it is obvious from observation that it does.

I think if I were doing this study, I would discuss the use of cell phones and how people react when they are at the cashier in a store and are talking on the phone. It is interesting to see people when they check out, and to notice if they hang up, tell the caller to hold on, or attempt to maintain a conversation with both people at once. In addition to this idea, I have also witnessed people lately that are on wireless headsets when they talk on the phone. One of the major things I’ve noticed in stores and on campus is that these people often get confused looks when they are speaking on their phones through headset because no one realizes at first that they are on the phone and not speaking to them. I used to work in retail and there were many times I was out on the floor attempting to help customers and I would misunderstand something that was said to a caller through an earpiece.

Mobile health care

When I first realized that topic for this week's blog postings was mobile technology, I was doubtful that I would find much information regarding mobile technology and health care in developing countries of the world. However, upon searching, I found a wealth of information involving the topic, and was surprised to learn about initiatives that are currently being taken in developing countries to help improve health care and spread awareness about proper personal and sexual health. This particular blog will be regarding different areas of Africa and the different ideas about improving health care and the spread of information regarding health via mobile technology. All of the information in this blog post has been gathered from a pamphlet published as part of the Access to Communication Publication Series, and is entitled, "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in Mobile Use by NGOs."

The first area of focus of the publication is in South Africa and involved AIDS and HIV education and treatment and the use of mobile technology to improve both. To begin with, I found it shocking that over 41% of South Africa's population is using mobile technology, and over 90% of the country is covered with a mobile network. This piece of information starts to make it clearer how mobile technology can be used to help spread awareness and assist in the treatment of AIDS and HIV. Those patients in Africa that are lucky enough to receive ART (anti-retroviral treatment) for AIDS or HIV often aren't seen on a regular basis or don't maintain their treatment regimens. Most of the time in South Africa, many treatments go to waste because of lack of patient monitoring and follow-up by the doctors. Especially in rural areas, people have to travel long distances to reach a hospital, and it is often unrealistic or unreasonable to expect this to happen. Cell-life is the company responsible for the "Aftercare" program within South Africa and the program utilized mobile technology to help care for patients and improve patient monitoring. There are house calls made by individuals associated with hospitals, and through the use of mobile technology they are able to input large amounts of information about many patients into a database so that they can then be monitored and treated accordingly. This seems like a great way to keep tabs on patients and to improve the effectiveness and regularity of AIDS and HIV treatments in Africa. With such widening mobile technology use in South Africa, it is essential to utilize the technology in any way possible to help improve health care.

Another important initiative discussed in the publication involves the use of mobile technology to connect health care workers in rural areas with larger databases of medical knowledge and resources. As mentioned in the article, in many rural areas, there is one lone doctor or nurse treating thousands of patients without access to the internet, or even a telephone. The Academy for Educational Development- Satellife, a U.S. based company, has begun to equip medical personnel in rural areas of Uganda with PDA's in order to store information and communicate with health care professionals in more populated areas with better access to medical technology and resources. This is important, and often something that people forget about when considering health care in developing countries. As important as it is to keep the patients informed about their treatments and their health, it is so important to ensure that health care professionals in these areas have access to the information and resources necessary to effectively treat thousands of patients, sometimes completely on their own.

The last area of improvement regarding mobile technology in Africa discussed in the publication involves the areas of Kenya and Zambia. This involves making public health information more readily accessible to health care professionals. The non-profit Data-Dyne group produced a program called EpiSurveyor, which allowed health care professionals to gather time-sensitive information about their patients using mobile technology and this particular software. Like the example above, this initiative is so important in helping health care workers to be more thorough in their treatment of sick individuals and also to be more able to track patients and follow up with treatments given.