You paved paradise to put up a parking lot

Those of you who may know me know that one of my pet peeves in life is when someone gets sick or dies of an illness or whatever that was completely preventable. As such, I really enjoy medical anthropology, public health issues, and international medicine.

That is the real reason I went to South Africa and Brasil (they spell it with an "s", I spell it with an "s"). I wanted to get more experience with international medicine and get exposed to real work being done in public health and medical anthropology. Mission accomplished and I loved every second.

Why do I tell you this? Two reasons:

1) The differences in this country, most clearly shown by two different populations with in the same city, are astronomical in the type of health care people receive. It is based on a number of issues. They all relate directly to one thing: Socioeconomic status.

In America, the poorer you are the more likely you are to have to rely on public education. The more likely you are to live in a "bad" area of town. The more likely you are to have inadequate funding for your public schools. The more likely you are to not get a good education. The more likely you are to make poor choices regarding your health or to not understand the proper way to take medicines etc.

You are also more likely to live in a neighborhood surrounded by fast food and liquor stores. Not because that is what you want ... fatty foods and alcohol ... but because other establishments won't set up shop. Your grocery store, provided you even have one near by, is probably subpar in the fresh produce section. Therefore you don't eat as healthily because there are severe obstacles in your way.

Race actually plays a very small role in this. SES is king. Race is a social aspect foremost and most impact race has on a population is due more to social constraints placed on that race. For example, mistrust of doctors by African-Americans for fairly valid reasons -- see Tuskeegee Experiments for the worst/best example. They are less likely to go get something checked out as quickly, take medications they are unsure of, and can have higher levels of stress when going to a doctor. That can be compounded if they refuse to go unless in an emergency situation and get carted around all day and night to different doctors and nurses. That is just one way things we can contribute to race are actually socially based, but I digress.

I bring this to your attention to lead to my second point after I say this: The difference in life expectancy in East Louisville (Frankfort Rd to Prospect area) and West/Central Louisville is ten years. A decade just by living in the wrong neighborhood. Where you were probably born and raised by no choice of your own. In Washington D.C. you can add 5-10 years to life expectancy per metro stop from the center of the city to the suburbs. If that is the case in America ... imagine it in other countries.

2) My school has a few opportunities in the summer to go abroad as part of a summer rotation. One trip is to Honduras and one trip is to Ecuador. I obviously applied to both. Honduras is evidently hard to get into. Considering I do not speak Spanish and am not sitting in the top of my class, my odds are not too great. However, we applied this week and they are giving out interviews this weekend. I have an interview. Hopefully all goes well and I can get to Honduras this summer.

Digression at the end ... so I like all this and point out flaws in American health care and then go to another country to help. Is that not backwards? Shouldn't I help out here all summer where I can?

I wish it were that easy, but I will probably gain a lot more experience outside of the US at my level of medical education. Also, I get to travel this way, which is amazing. In my future I would love to try and tackle the issues here at home.

I also know that doing however much volunteer work as a student or physician is like emptying a bucket of water in a Hurricane with an eye dropper. Sure you're helping, but you aren't fixing the problem. To really end all of this we would need to completely start over in parts of our cities and societies. Not redistribute wealth ... if you give something to someone they will waste it and expect more and become reliant. However, if we create a better public education system and bring things like fresh produce grocery stores and keep liquor stores, cigarette companies, and fast food from infiltrating certain areas as prevalently as they currently are we could slowly turn this thing around. Key world slowly.

Fast solutions usually are temporary or have extra consequences you do not want. If you take to route to the real solution and fix it correctly, the world will be a better place.