blog 1 - kathryn sullivan

After viewing the pictures and thinking about it over night all I could think about were the differences between western medicine and well everyone else. From my own experiences of working in hospitals it seems that at first everyone is treated like a number, people being referred to by room number or medical record number, or sometimes a last name where no true identity is attached. The person seems to loose face among the type of procedures, being proked and proded, its so incredibly unusual. Sometimes I think that western medicine has it all wrong. But after looking at the pictures it makes me feel incredibly fortunate at the same time. Becuase I know that I in my lifetime I will probably never have to confront some of the diseases that face the people in Sierra Leone, like those viewed in the pictures posted. I feel what I may be sacrificing, in terms of being treated more holistically in the states, seems like its worth the sacrifice when compared to the possible disease that these less fortunate people face. My next question would be what kind of medical systems do these people have intact as of now? Are there attempts to incorporating western medicine on their own? Do they practice shamanism, as seen in the video viewed in class, that worked for the one guy complaining of pain? If both are practiced are they incorporated into each other or do they remain seperate?