Understanding Medical Practices

If you ever received a consent form mere hours or minutes before a hospital procedure, you can imagine how confused the mother was when she received a form asking her to agree to let one of her unborn twins participate in Dr. He Jiankui's gene-editing experiment. Relying on information learned from Dr. Michael Deem, his U.S. Ph.D. mentor, Dr. He used the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to disable the gene that enables HIV to enter a cell by attaching itself to a protein.

     Medical professionals cannot be expected to write informed consent forms lay people can understand. Communication experts in the countries where forms are used need to choose the best ways to translate modern medical research and procedures and to pilot test forms before they are used.

     Since drugs produced in one country are used and sold at different prices throughout the world, they have the potential to be weaponized by overpricing them for, or withholding them from, enemy countries.

     Other practices also require attention. Some countries and companies offer financial rewards for stealing intellectual property.
The FBI is investigating Yu Zhou for making millions by forming a company based on a discovery he made while using U.S. government grants and performing research owned by Ohio's National Children;s Hospital while he worked in a lab there for ten years.

     In a major example of "ethics dumping," the practice of performing a medical procedure in another country that is banned at home, China's health ministry prevented Italian neurosurgeon, Dr. Sergio Canavero, from attaching the head of a paralyzed patient to the body of a deceased donor in China.

     When a doctor suggests a child take a prescribed drug or undergo a procedure, does the child's parent or guardian truly understand the side effects and alternatives? Modern medicine is not only costly; it is complicated. Busy adults often lack time to obtain a second opinion, ask a pharmacist if there is a lower cost generic, analyze internet opinions, or subscribe to and read a newsletter from a medical research center. At the very least, a relationship with a child's doctor and specialists needs to feel comfortable enough to ask questions and follow-up questions to make answers clear. As soon as children are old enough, involve
them in the questioning. They want to know if a needle or the dentist will hurt and how long they will be in the hospital or have to wear a cast or braces.

      Teachers, scouting groups, boys and girls clubs, etc. might look for opportunities to assign reports on subjects, such as gene editing, bioethics, using drones to deliver drugs in Africa, hair growth products, vaccines, and vaping. Also, see if the Red Cross, nursing organizations, emergency medical services, local hospitals, or other medical associations have outreach programs that provide speakers and tours.

     Students always ask how what they are supposed to learn is relevant. Everywhere in the world learning about health is relevant.

Help Wanted

Just as interests in finance, fashion, sports, and other subjects can lead to international career options, an interest in helping others also can cause students to find work beyond their borders. In fact, a handout from the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages early adolescents to "try activities that help others." The earlier post, "Hope for the Future," suggests ways, even at a younger age, children can begin to alleviate some of the world's suffering.

It is interesting to see how often young people are in the news for helping others. A child has her head shaved to show a classmate with cancer that she is not the only one who looks different. An Olympic athlete bonds with a brother with special needs. College students spend their spring breaks, not drinking and tanning in Florida, but building a senior citizen home in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. To test out how well a student is suited to help people in a foreign country, the earlier post, "See the World," has information about educational experiences that young people can try overseas while they are in school.

An early commitment to helping others can continue into a life's work, even to the point of extreme personal sacrifice. Missionaries Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol contracted the deadly Ebola virus at medical facilities in Liberia. Father Alexis Prem Kumar, the director of Jesuit refugee services in Afghanistan, has been kidnapped by terrorists, and U.S. AID workers are imprisoned in Pakistan and Cuba.

While helping others in a foreign country entails a certain amount of risk, the abundance of positions available is worth exploring. Start by going to directories for development organizations (devdir.org) and the individual websites of Care (care.org) that fights poverty around the world, the Red Cross (redcross.org) that goes where foreign disasters strike, Unicef (unicef.org) that concentrates on the needs of the world's poorest children, Doctors Without Borders (doctorswithoutborders.org) who are now fighting Ebola in West Africa, and Operation Smile (operationsmile.org) that performs surgery to correct cleft lips and palates on children in foreign countries. Almost every year a nurse friend of mine spends her vacations assisting the doctors at Operation Smile.

Short-term, overseas assignments also are available at organizations such as: Cross-Cultural Solutions, Global Volunteers, Habitat for Humanity's Global Village Program, Projects Abroad, and United Planet. Volunteers in these programs find themselves caring for children in foreign orphanages, rescuing endangered animals, teaching English, digging wells, painting classrooms, and unearthing archaeological treasures.

As a marketer, I have been especially pleased to find organizations like SERRV (serrv.org) that send experienced marketers to help foreign artisans design products that consumers in developed countries want to buy. Father James Martin, in his book The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, writes about how he used the corporate experience he had before becoming a priest to help a seamstress in Nairobi, Kenya, gain an income by turning fabric remnants into religious goods for tourists. Artist Iris Shiloh's visit to India and Swaziland inspired her to found Kids for Kids (kidsforkidsfashion.com). She prints designs created by orphans and poor children in lesser developed countries on T-shirts and then donates a portion of the sales revenue back to the organizations that sponsored the little artists.

Hawaiians say missionaries came to do good and did very well (buying land and establishing plantations and businesses). Even if it's not motivated by altruism, going overseas to help others can have benefits. Colleges and corporations look for students and employees who have international experience.
(Additional information about international careers also is available in the earlier post, "What Do You Want to Be?")

Medical Profession Suffers from International Conflict

Dr. Chukuka Enwemeka, Dean of the University of Wisconsin's College of Health Sciences in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has discovered phototherapy with blue light can destroy the super bug that prevents antibiotics from killing staph infections from methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Blue light has been shown to kill more than 90 percent of two strains of MRSA, and repeat treatments have killed 100 percent.

     According to Dr. Enwemeka, "phototherapy has been around for decades." Why has it taken until relatively recently for this therapy to be used more frequently? Western scientists were suspicious, Dr. Enwemeka said, because "Much of the research on phototherapy started in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War."