Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

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96 Surgery and Healing in the Developing World
Centre in Kerala said, “The journal should stimulate a search for cancer strategies
compatible with the socioeconomic realities in developing countries.” He states what
is evident, that doctors in developing countries often prescribe advanced drug therapy
protocols discussed in Western journals. “This has jacked up treatment costs to such
levels that cancer care has become inaccessible to a large number of patients. The
great majority of tumours in developing countries are diagnosed late, and resources
are directed at treating incurable conditions,” said Dr. Mohammad Al-Jarallah, who
is Kuwait’s health minister and also a consultant surgeon and the journal’s joint
Editor-in-Chief. The full article provides several eye opening examples and insights.
This is an excellent step forward in dealing with the realities of health care in
developing countries. The communication of alternatives demanded by the socioeconomic
realities is worthy of credible useful reasearch of the highest order. The
complexity of developing countries’ circumstances demands the best and brightest
to address the problems. Developing countries, much like the term Third World,
denies the uniqueness and individuality of each nation and region. Resources and
problems vary so widely as to make the terms meaningless and counterproductive.
We must learn to be discerning and specific when entering the arena of country and
regional health matters. The Austral-Asian Journal of Cancer should be a beginning
of communication and a field of research that is originated by professionals in developing
countries and is about developing country health matters.
The challenge is to combine the information gleaned from the Western sources
and the information generated in developing areas to apply to developing nations
problems. The result should be a credible, legitimized body of research, articles and
reports that has its place in the mainstream of global health sciences communication.
This body of information will go beyond the visiting experts from the West
who arrive and define the problem in Western terms then vanish. This will begin to
put meaning and purpose into developing country-based professionals who are often
highly frustrated by the technology and costly protocols they read about on the
Web or other Western sources. Evidence-based practice is not widely affordable when
the evidence is generated in an affluent community. Problem- and reality-based
research and a new relevant body of literature and communication is needed.
It is a time of change and progress. The literature as we have known it is in flux.
Information is being distributed globally by a variety of facilitated technologies most
of which are computer-related. Content is the issue rather than the technology of
communication. Admittedly the Internet is not fully developed, and there are many
problems with the technology of the computer. But we have a tool that is so fast and
cheap that it is not waiting for someone to use it but rather it is the driving force of
change. As individuals and organizations adopt the technology, the forms of information
exchange grow and modify our needs and the formats for information communication.
The following is a list of innovations in communication devices and
results of applications of the technology that are changing the way we obtain and
use our information.
1. Standard articles in the health sciences archived in online databases or on
CDROMs and other memory devices.
2. The National Institutes of Health proposed database that will include not
only peer-reviewed articles but expert-reviewed articles and work in
progress reports that will allow updating as research progresses. Virtually
all submissions will be included and categorized. Commercial publishers
are developing similar mega databases of information.