Sage Whitmore
As I was packing for my first international medical trip to Guyana, South America, my wandering mind conjured image after image of third-world medicine based on popular notions and dramatic stories I have heard over the years. I imagined a row of soiled cots where emaciated children without IV access spent their final hours. I pictured a sweltering tent full of tuberculosis patients collectively coughing up blood; or a bathroom-sized emergency department packed with fever-stricken, jaundiced, indigenous peoples dying of AIDS, malaria, and other ailments while overwhelmed healthcare workers looked the other way out of emotional self-preservation because they had nothing to offer. As described to me by some physicians who had been there in recent years, some of these were features specific to the hospital I was heading to in the capital city of Georgetown.I am delighted to tell you how antiquated and cynical my preconceived notions had been.
An Impatient Optimist
Dec 01 2011
by SENATOR WILLIAM H FRIST MD
In 1981, I was a surgeon in training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. I still remember the day we learned about a strange, new, deadly infection that presented on the West Coast. A little over a year later, we learned it was caused by a virus transmitted in the blood, a vital fact for a doctor performing surgery every day.As I watched the epidemic grow from a handful of cases to a few hundred to several million, I also witnessed the cases grow in biblical proportions in less developed nations, namely across Africa. While I served in the Senate, I volunteered on annual mission trips to do surgery in villages ravaged by civil war. In these forgotten corners of the world, I witnessed how HIV was hollowing out societies.
by Jenny Eaton Dyer, Ph.D.
Both Friend Force of Knoxville and Friend Force of Memphis are hosting the Russian delegates this week, including today.
The Russian delegates in Knoxville will be meeting with governmental officials Mayor Daniel Brown as well as Judge Tom Varlan today. They will be briefed on the bluegrass music of Appalachia at the Knoxville Visitor's Center, and their afternoon will be spent visiting with Cherokee Health Systems. This evening, the North Rotary Club of Knoxville will host the Russian delegates for dinner.
In Memphis, the delegates will meet with the Memphis Medical Society as well as with the University of Memphis. At the University, there will be round table discussions regarding healthcare delivery in Russia and the United States among other presentations.
The attractive building, located at Plot 10 Windsor Loop, Kampala, was officially opened on 16th of September 2011 in a grand ceremony presided by Hon. Princess Kabakumba Masiko, Minister of Presidency, who represented H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda.