Farmer and the Pathologies of Power

Yesterday I took part in a conference call with Dr. Paul Farmer through the AMSA Global Health Scholar Program. Just as he was when when we met last Friday, Paul was extremely warm and receptive to to us and our questions. Or conversation ran the gamut of global health issues, from his projects in Haiti and Rwanda, to the best ways to develop global health interventions, to how to galvanize national governments and multinational organizations, to questions surrounding human rights and morality, and much more. It was a wonderful conversation and it was such a priviledge that I had the opportunity to take part in it. I am debating on whether to contact him at some point, but I'm not sure if I would have the opportunity to work with him.

I have another interview next Wednesday with the TB Alliance. Hopefully I will be able to finalize some type of project with them for this summer. I am not sure how I'm going to juggle all the plans I have, but I would really like to have a global health component to my summer.

In other news, we just found out that one of the students in my medical school class passed away last week. We don't know what she had exactly, but we know there was a congenital disease that also took her mother's life. When her health problems worsened, Sarah took ths Spring semester off in order to rest. She passed away at her grandmother's house in Massachussetts. There was a memorial service for her yesterday at Mount Sinai, and a number of students and faculty who knew her spoke.

Yesterday we also found out that one of my roommates contracted tuberculosis. He had a positive PPD and so they did a chest xray, which also came back positive. Now they have to culture his sputum to see what strain it is, and then he will most likely be put on isoniazid and rifampin. It's pretty wild that something like that would happen, especially since he had a negative PPD last July. He's worried about it, and let his family know that they should also get a PPD test done.

A YEAR?!?!

I just took my midterm exam in Pathogenesis and Mechanisms of Host Defense, which means that only three final exams stand between me and second-year (those being Path, ASM, and PMHD). As the end of first-year is quickly coming into sight and I can count the last assignments I still have to do on my fingers, I thought this would be a reasonable time to think about what has happened in the last 11 months. About a year ago I was putting the finishing touches on my Master's Thesis (I think it was due a year ago this Friday), and I was getting ready for graduation. That was such a crazy time, when I still didn't know where I would be going to medical school (NY... Miami... anywhere...). Soon after I accepted the spot at Sinai, I started the SEP program. While that program was a great practice for the actualy courses we'd be taking in the Fall, it was all still surreal to me. When classes actually started and we met all the rest of the students, things started to move really quickly. I remember the first time I volunteered at EHHOP I was scared to even touch the patient... now I almost feel like I could do the whole history/physical on my own (as I did countless times in Belize). This year I dissected two cadavers, got the opportunity to be an AMSA Global Health Scholar, spoke with Stephen Lewis, met Jeff Sachs and Paul Farmer, saw Bill Clinton speak, went to Belize, and am closing to having a paper published. It has truthfully been a roller-coaster ride, and I definitely would not have thought so much would happen in this year.