Word: cataracts
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...poor village in Ghana, in West Africa. "We examined 4,600 people and documented their visual status, refractive errors and any pathology or disease," he wrote. "We gave spectacles to all who needed glasses and gave away 500 pairs of reading glasses. My retinal partner and I performed 159 cataract surgeries. All of the patients were seen one week postoperatively. There were no infections or serious complications...
...worry. The Livingstone occupies a prime position just five minutes' stroll from the eastern cataract - and if you can't even face that, there are golf carts to transport you to the water's edge. Rent a rain poncho for $2 from the guys at the top of the path - at this proximity, you don't so much see the Falls as pass through a series of Zambezi car washes - and pay your tourist dues...
...strongest push toward specialization, however, is financial. And the crowd follows the money. Ophthalmology presented a great example of this. Back when Medicare payed $5000 for taking out a cataract, fully half of the class of medical students I taught were trying to get ophthalmology residencies. (Although three-fourths of them had declared "primary care practice in under-served urban environments" on their med school applications.) Now that a cataracts pays $600, there are maybe a couple kids per class going into the eye field. Because specialists did more training, because they use more expensive parts and pills, because they...
...research with humans has been very limited, experiments with animals have shown that if you place a normal kitten, for example, in a completely dark chamber immediately after birth, the kitten will become irrevocably blind. As a result, doctors in developing nations are often reluctant to perform surgeries like cataract removals on children. The risks--infection, mostly--outweigh the meager rewards...
...lesson, says Yu, "I only donate to the projects that I can see and touch myself. I have to ensure that nobody could get illicit gains from my donations." Yu, who gave $250 million in 2005, according to Hurun, focuses his work on Bright Action, which has provided free cataract surgery to more than 40,000 poor villagers throughout China. (Yu's own sight was saved by a cataract operation in 2000.) But because there is still little support for philanthropy from local governments?"since they aren't able to take credit for it," Yu says?Bright Action, like many...