1-28-19 ~ I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

What is Health? "A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." -First Principle in the Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization, 1948 Today was my first day of the Global Medicine Honors Track! Dr. Bentley lectured on the definition of Health, Global Health, Public Health, etc... you get the idea. She talked about how there are still some areas of the world that don't receive proper sanitation (i.e., have never used a westernized toilet), that don't have clean running water, that still live in houses made of cow, sheep, and goat dung. While I always knew that the United States is very advanced and westernized, it blew my mind to learn about some of the differences between developed and developing countries. We take for granted so much living in the US, and today's lecture really opened my eyes to the progress that we've made in the last century, but also the progress that needs to be made for the future. We learned today that every person has a monetary value assigned to them. The developed, or industrialized, have a relatively high income per capita, and on the contrary, developing countries have a relatively "low" income per capita. This means that people living in the US, Australia, France, or Singapore, for example, are worth more than those from Haiti, Nigeria, Bangladesh, or Cambodia. This was eye-opening to me, because I've never thought of individuals being worth something in terms of money. However, Dr. Bentley stated it bluntly: the people in developing countries are more expendable than we are. But, what gives us that privilege to be less expendable? The fact that we somehow managed to become relatively rich? That we had smart, lucky people create new things that advanced our country faster than others? How is that fair? How can someone say, it's an individual's fault for not being able to live in better conditions, or make more money, if that was the world they were born into? Who gets to decide what we are worth? It's mind-blowing to me, to think of myself as better than another individual because I'm from a developed country. It's like saying, "don't rank me because of my talents, my intelligence, my skills, my achievements... rank me by what country I'm from." It just sounds ridiculous. But, I guess that's the world we live in, and for there to be some kind of hierarchy, this system has to exist. It makes me sad to think that's just how it is, and there's not much I can do about it by myself. It makes me frustrated that I haven't been doing more to help those in developing countries who are asking for help. In the US, heart disease and cancer ranked the top two causes of death in 2018. Right up there in the top 10 are chronic respiratory diseases, stroke, and diabetes... all of which can be preventable. My job as a future physician is to educate my patients and the community to better care for themselves so we as a people can better care for our children and therefore the future of our world. My eyes were bright and bushy-tailed when I first entered the library today. But after this lecture, and after reflecting on the reality of global health and how the world works, I don't think my eyes are gleaming with complete naivety anymore. Instead, they are sharp, focused, and determined to learn what I can do to help make a change.

The GINI Coefficient represents the income distribution of the nation's residents, and is the most commonly used measure of inequality. This image shows which countries' GINI coefficient have drastically changed from 1985 to 2015