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I’m guilty. I feel a sense of entitlement, as many of us do. I have always had access to the best health care available. Even as a child, whenever I had a runny nose, my parents not only knew what to do but could afford whatever it took to make me feel better. And vaccine-preventable illnesses? They didn’t stand a chance at my house. I remember the day when I was a little girl and my father, a general practitioner, figured out my plan to wait him out as he stood patiently outside the bathroom door, vaccine in hand. He eventually got tired of waiting, barged in, oblivious to the fact that I was sitting on the potty (twiddling my fingers), and shot me right in arm. The nerve!
Many of us have no concept of what it is like to be ill. I mean really ill with no one to help, and no way to pay for that help even if we could find it. In the March 6, 2014, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, authors of "Global Supply of Health Professionals" note that there’s a worldwide crisis of severe shortages, as well as maldistribution of health care professionals intensified by three global transitions: redistribution of the disability burden, demographic changes, and epidemiologic shifts. An estimated 25% of physicians in America come from other countries. Naturally, in some cases the countries of origin have their own health care challenges, so the trend to immigrate to America has significant potential to exacerbate an already critical shortage.
Of the estimated 9.2 million doctors worldwide, 8% reside in the United States. Of the 18.1 million nurses, 17% are in here. To put it in perspective, only 4% of the world’s population lives in the United States, yet we command a lion’s share of the global health care workforce, leaving the citizens of many other countries vulnerable to excessive suffering, premature death, and preventable diseases.
With all that America has to offer, I don’t see the pendulum shifting back in the other direction any time soon, but many of us are in a position to provide much needed health care to our brothers and sisters in even the most remote areas of the world.
As squeamish as I am about charting unknown territory, even I went on a medical missions trip to Nicaragua a few years ago and I will never forget it. We had to climb up the side of a mountain to get to a clearing that would hold the makeshift medical clinic. Of course, the locals came out in large numbers to receive much-needed medical care.
On the way back to the hotel I noticed some little boys tossing an object back and forth in the street. It seemed like pleasant fun until we got closer and I saw the object they were tossing was a dead rat. Even what we consider an inexpensive child’s toy is a luxury for many. If you consider salary and benefits, we hospitalists make more, on average, in a single shift than many Nicaraguans make in an entire year.
Every physician should spend some time caring for the poorest of the poor, whether it be in a needy foreign country, Appalachia or rural America, or in the inner city, often just 30 minutes from our homes.
Surely it will help or change the patient’s life. But, too, it just might change your perspective, forever, and renew your passion for what we do – help others.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
I’m guilty. I feel a sense of entitlement, as many of us do. I have always had access to the best health care available. Even as a child, whenever I had a runny nose, my parents not only knew what to do but could afford whatever it took to make me feel better. And vaccine-preventable illnesses? They didn’t stand a chance at my house. I remember the day when I was a little girl and my father, a general practitioner, figured out my plan to wait him out as he stood patiently outside the bathroom door, vaccine in hand. He eventually got tired of waiting, barged in, oblivious to the fact that I was sitting on the potty (twiddling my fingers), and shot me right in arm. The nerve!
Many of us have no concept of what it is like to be ill. I mean really ill with no one to help, and no way to pay for that help even if we could find it. In the March 6, 2014, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, authors of "Global Supply of Health Professionals" note that there’s a worldwide crisis of severe shortages, as well as maldistribution of health care professionals intensified by three global transitions: redistribution of the disability burden, demographic changes, and epidemiologic shifts. An estimated 25% of physicians in America come from other countries. Naturally, in some cases the countries of origin have their own health care challenges, so the trend to immigrate to America has significant potential to exacerbate an already critical shortage.
Of the estimated 9.2 million doctors worldwide, 8% reside in the United States. Of the 18.1 million nurses, 17% are in here. To put it in perspective, only 4% of the world’s population lives in the United States, yet we command a lion’s share of the global health care workforce, leaving the citizens of many other countries vulnerable to excessive suffering, premature death, and preventable diseases.
With all that America has to offer, I don’t see the pendulum shifting back in the other direction any time soon, but many of us are in a position to provide much needed health care to our brothers and sisters in even the most remote areas of the world.
As squeamish as I am about charting unknown territory, even I went on a medical missions trip to Nicaragua a few years ago and I will never forget it. We had to climb up the side of a mountain to get to a clearing that would hold the makeshift medical clinic. Of course, the locals came out in large numbers to receive much-needed medical care.
On the way back to the hotel I noticed some little boys tossing an object back and forth in the street. It seemed like pleasant fun until we got closer and I saw the object they were tossing was a dead rat. Even what we consider an inexpensive child’s toy is a luxury for many. If you consider salary and benefits, we hospitalists make more, on average, in a single shift than many Nicaraguans make in an entire year.
Every physician should spend some time caring for the poorest of the poor, whether it be in a needy foreign country, Appalachia or rural America, or in the inner city, often just 30 minutes from our homes.
Surely it will help or change the patient’s life. But, too, it just might change your perspective, forever, and renew your passion for what we do – help others.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
I’m guilty. I feel a sense of entitlement, as many of us do. I have always had access to the best health care available. Even as a child, whenever I had a runny nose, my parents not only knew what to do but could afford whatever it took to make me feel better. And vaccine-preventable illnesses? They didn’t stand a chance at my house. I remember the day when I was a little girl and my father, a general practitioner, figured out my plan to wait him out as he stood patiently outside the bathroom door, vaccine in hand. He eventually got tired of waiting, barged in, oblivious to the fact that I was sitting on the potty (twiddling my fingers), and shot me right in arm. The nerve!
Many of us have no concept of what it is like to be ill. I mean really ill with no one to help, and no way to pay for that help even if we could find it. In the March 6, 2014, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, authors of "Global Supply of Health Professionals" note that there’s a worldwide crisis of severe shortages, as well as maldistribution of health care professionals intensified by three global transitions: redistribution of the disability burden, demographic changes, and epidemiologic shifts. An estimated 25% of physicians in America come from other countries. Naturally, in some cases the countries of origin have their own health care challenges, so the trend to immigrate to America has significant potential to exacerbate an already critical shortage.
Of the estimated 9.2 million doctors worldwide, 8% reside in the United States. Of the 18.1 million nurses, 17% are in here. To put it in perspective, only 4% of the world’s population lives in the United States, yet we command a lion’s share of the global health care workforce, leaving the citizens of many other countries vulnerable to excessive suffering, premature death, and preventable diseases.
With all that America has to offer, I don’t see the pendulum shifting back in the other direction any time soon, but many of us are in a position to provide much needed health care to our brothers and sisters in even the most remote areas of the world.
As squeamish as I am about charting unknown territory, even I went on a medical missions trip to Nicaragua a few years ago and I will never forget it. We had to climb up the side of a mountain to get to a clearing that would hold the makeshift medical clinic. Of course, the locals came out in large numbers to receive much-needed medical care.
On the way back to the hotel I noticed some little boys tossing an object back and forth in the street. It seemed like pleasant fun until we got closer and I saw the object they were tossing was a dead rat. Even what we consider an inexpensive child’s toy is a luxury for many. If you consider salary and benefits, we hospitalists make more, on average, in a single shift than many Nicaraguans make in an entire year.
Every physician should spend some time caring for the poorest of the poor, whether it be in a needy foreign country, Appalachia or rural America, or in the inner city, often just 30 minutes from our homes.
Surely it will help or change the patient’s life. But, too, it just might change your perspective, forever, and renew your passion for what we do – help others.
Dr. Hester is a hospitalist with Baltimore-Washington Medical Center who has a passion for empowering patients to partner in their health care. She is the creator of the Patient Whiz, a patient-engagement app for iOS.
