Tired of Looking at Old Photographs

Tired of Looking at Old Photographs

People die everyday and that’s o.k.. But when people die irrelevantly, that’s not so o.k.. To die in such a way is dying due to mistakes and glitches. To avoid such deaths, worldwide healthcare systems have to improve. In this regional meeting, I wish to learn how to improve my own health system.

What is learning? Basically, it’s gathering information to transform it later into knowledge. But how does that happen? I guess it happens with time, when one applies the information contextually. During the regional meeting,  I am gathering a tremendous amount information and much of that, if applied, could improve the world’s health issues.

In this entry, I would like to explore the idea of information sharing. Humans, unlike animals, have the capacity to accumulate information. According to writer Alan Moore : « the last count human information was doubling around every 18 months. Further to this, there is a point somewhere around 2015 when human information is doubling every thousandth of a second. That means that in each thousandth of second we will have accumulated more information than we have in the entire previous history of the world. » Taking this into consideration, we could only imagine how fast medicine evolves. Unfortunately, not all information is accessible to all of the population. For example, some medical journals cost thousands of dollars to consult. Imagine a world where all scientific publications were free to consult. It’s undeniable that progress would increase. Thankfully, the organization « Open Access » is fighting to make that possible. Indeed, journals seem to be slowly converting to Open Access. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine is now an Open Access Journal. They allow free access to delayed medical articles.

Free access to information seems like a no-brainer, considering that we wish to fight disease.

Around 1 a.m., I am walking on the beach. The warm pacific waters hit my legs as I ponder on how societies could function so much better. The waves of life are inconstant and unpredictable. As I walk further, a bigger wave hits me. I get pissed; my camera was in my right pocket (take note that no camera was damaged during this walk).

I look up at the sky to look at stars, not knowing whether they’re still there or not, not knowing whether today’s problems are real or not, not knowing if they will ever end or not. It takes so many years for star light to reach us, as do social problems. I’m tired of looking at old photographs of stars. I’m also tired of recurrently pondering on social issues. I turn around and walk back to my hotel room. Such thoughts will come back, considering that nothing ever ends.

« I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us… All we ever see of stars are their old photographs » (DOCTOR MANHATTAN in Watchmen written by Alan Moore)