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March 28, 2010
March 27, 2010
March 26, 2010
Liberate the Data!
I have a new moto: liberate the data!
I think its very appropriate to the work I am doing here in Salvador, which is basically taking medical charts and reading them. carefully. I am trying to find a lot of information from charts that are handwritten and in Portuguese, no easy task
I did not find this motto by myself, but the geeky, global-health, data-part of me was extremely happy to see this post http://aidwatchers.com/2010/03/new-portal-seeks-to-liberate-the-aid-data/ on the Aid Watch Blog (William Easterly).
here is a taste of the article...
New portal seeks to liberate aid data
By Laura Freschi
Published March 25, 2010
AidData, a new development finance data portal, was launched on Tuesday along with a companion blog called The First Tranche. From their inaugural post:
AidData 1.0, …assembles more aid projects from more donors totaling more dollars than have ever been available from a single source before. AidData catalogues nearly one million projects that were financed between 1945 and 2009, adding or augmenting data on $1.9 trillion of development finance records. We currently have data from 87 different donors, and data from even more donors will come online every few months.
Today I observed a lumbar puncture on a woman with encephalitis. It was over 90 degrees in the room and the physician could not find any of the CSF fluid. The whole time I thought I was going to faint because it was so hot. But it was interesting to see a patient. I am going to try to observe other procedures.
I went to the beach yesterday and walked past a church that had a huge cage of hundereds of guinea pigs. I think they were for eating and they reminded me a lot of rats. It was the first time a guinea pig freaked me out. I think large numbers of small rodents are particularly scary. I also went to get ice cream with the two students who live in the same apartment as me. They study a lot and I have not had much of a chance to interact with them (that and I dont speak very well), But we had a hilarious conversation about university. I made some funny language mistakes, like accidently calling them cooks rather than cousins :).
I think its very appropriate to the work I am doing here in Salvador, which is basically taking medical charts and reading them. carefully. I am trying to find a lot of information from charts that are handwritten and in Portuguese, no easy task
I did not find this motto by myself, but the geeky, global-health, data-part of me was extremely happy to see this post http://aidwatchers.com/2010/03/new-portal-seeks-to-liberate-the-aid-data/ on the Aid Watch Blog (William Easterly).
here is a taste of the article...
New portal seeks to liberate aid data
By Laura Freschi
Published March 25, 2010
AidData, a new development finance data portal, was launched on Tuesday along with a companion blog called The First Tranche. From their inaugural post:
AidData 1.0, …assembles more aid projects from more donors totaling more dollars than have ever been available from a single source before. AidData catalogues nearly one million projects that were financed between 1945 and 2009, adding or augmenting data on $1.9 trillion of development finance records. We currently have data from 87 different donors, and data from even more donors will come online every few months.
Today I observed a lumbar puncture on a woman with encephalitis. It was over 90 degrees in the room and the physician could not find any of the CSF fluid. The whole time I thought I was going to faint because it was so hot. But it was interesting to see a patient. I am going to try to observe other procedures.
I went to the beach yesterday and walked past a church that had a huge cage of hundereds of guinea pigs. I think they were for eating and they reminded me a lot of rats. It was the first time a guinea pig freaked me out. I think large numbers of small rodents are particularly scary. I also went to get ice cream with the two students who live in the same apartment as me. They study a lot and I have not had much of a chance to interact with them (that and I dont speak very well), But we had a hilarious conversation about university. I made some funny language mistakes, like accidently calling them cooks rather than cousins :).
March 25, 2010
A lack of materialism
One thing that I have noticed here in Brazil so far is a lack of materialism and attachment to things ( at least in the older generation) as I have only visited elderly women. Their houses are clean and sparse and they really dont have many possessions. The possessions they do have, they value and fix them when broken instead of throwing them away. It is much easier to get things fixed here than in the US. So far, in two days, my grandmother has had her slippers (flip-flops for you mainlanders) repaired where they had ripped, the ethernet cord repaired (the man literally opened it up and put on a new connector thing) and fixed an extension cord that exploded in flames when she tried using it with her 1950s iron. She says it now works but I am unsure if I should test it out with my computer.
I love Telenovelas, its been great for learning language and the plots are definitely full of drama. I have been watching the one that comes on at 5. But there is another one on from 8-9 that everyone watches, that I have yet made it through without falling asleep during (thank you jet lag and not sleeping much during finals). Its the only thing on tv that people watch. Last night one character, who was confined to a wheelchair because her car flipped over, tried to take public transport in Rio to visit her friends in a very posh restaurant. She could have taken a taxi (she had lots of money) but instead championed for handicapped rights and took a bus that was handicap accessible. It was a great example of how Brazil is very modern. They have wheelchair accessible buses! Its very much a middle class country. In the south and southeast there is a whole class of people that are very well off. There are supermarkets, air conditioning, great traffic signals with crosswalks. Yet, this coexists with a lot of infectious disease and poverty. I am going to be meeting with a professor at Cornell who has lived in Salvador for the past 20 years and worked on slum health in Favelas (slums). It should be very interesting.
I love Telenovelas, its been great for learning language and the plots are definitely full of drama. I have been watching the one that comes on at 5. But there is another one on from 8-9 that everyone watches, that I have yet made it through without falling asleep during (thank you jet lag and not sleeping much during finals). Its the only thing on tv that people watch. Last night one character, who was confined to a wheelchair because her car flipped over, tried to take public transport in Rio to visit her friends in a very posh restaurant. She could have taken a taxi (she had lots of money) but instead championed for handicapped rights and took a bus that was handicap accessible. It was a great example of how Brazil is very modern. They have wheelchair accessible buses! Its very much a middle class country. In the south and southeast there is a whole class of people that are very well off. There are supermarkets, air conditioning, great traffic signals with crosswalks. Yet, this coexists with a lot of infectious disease and poverty. I am going to be meeting with a professor at Cornell who has lived in Salvador for the past 20 years and worked on slum health in Favelas (slums). It should be very interesting.
March 24, 2010
Oi do Brasil
I made it safely to Brasil on sunday afternoon after 24 hours of flying. I only missed one flight, not bad considering Chicago was having snowstorms. Fabianna picked me up from the airport with her daughter and took me food shopping at Pelerini, an upscale, gourmet food store. I tried panzhino, a Salvadoran specialty bread that has a creamed cheese filling. It is very delicious.
I am living with (as in sharing a room with) a very nice elderly woman whose name I cannot spell and who I will now call my Brazilian grandmother. She does not speak English and I have to try very hard to communicate, but its good fun. My portuguese is getting better!
I started work on monday at 7am (Fabianna gets up early!). I work in the public hospital on the 7th floor (by stairs). The hospital here is 100 years old and could use some renovations. They do have an elevator which Fabianna warned me against using as there is always a line of 15 people for it (when 5 can reasonable fit) and it goes very slowly.
We just submitted the IRB to brazil today so it will be at least 4-6 weeks before I can start collecting data from the national hospital. I started collecting records today from the stadual HIV center because it falls under Fabianna's IRB that was previously approved.
Besides doing lots of work... I have also been going shopping with my grandmother and meeting all of her sisters and nieces. So far I have met 3 sisters and at least 6 or 7 nieces.
I have been eating a lot of payaya, bananas and mangoes (yum!). The fruit and climate both remind me a lot of home. I seem to work best when its 85 degrees out (30) and humid!
I am living with (as in sharing a room with) a very nice elderly woman whose name I cannot spell and who I will now call my Brazilian grandmother. She does not speak English and I have to try very hard to communicate, but its good fun. My portuguese is getting better!
I started work on monday at 7am (Fabianna gets up early!). I work in the public hospital on the 7th floor (by stairs). The hospital here is 100 years old and could use some renovations. They do have an elevator which Fabianna warned me against using as there is always a line of 15 people for it (when 5 can reasonable fit) and it goes very slowly.
We just submitted the IRB to brazil today so it will be at least 4-6 weeks before I can start collecting data from the national hospital. I started collecting records today from the stadual HIV center because it falls under Fabianna's IRB that was previously approved.
Besides doing lots of work... I have also been going shopping with my grandmother and meeting all of her sisters and nieces. So far I have met 3 sisters and at least 6 or 7 nieces.
I have been eating a lot of payaya, bananas and mangoes (yum!). The fruit and climate both remind me a lot of home. I seem to work best when its 85 degrees out (30) and humid!
March 1, 2010
Home of all future travel adventures
I realized that it makes more sense to have one blog for all my travels instead of one blog per travel experience. So for simplicity sake, all my future travels will be documented here.
I am going to be traveling to Salvador, Brazil and living there for ten weeks from March 21st to June 1st. I will be completing my fieldwork for my masters degree in global health at UCSF. Though I will document my travels here, I also hope to discuss the application of many concepts I have learned about in class, in the Brazilian context.
I am going to be traveling to Salvador, Brazil and living there for ten weeks from March 21st to June 1st. I will be completing my fieldwork for my masters degree in global health at UCSF. Though I will document my travels here, I also hope to discuss the application of many concepts I have learned about in class, in the Brazilian context.
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