Hi! My name is Kathryn (Kat) Pedde. I grew up on a farm outside a small town in Canada. I am a freshman at Johns Hopkins University and I am planning on majoring in Public Health. As I am interested in Public Health, I am in Introduction to Public Health and am blogging about issues we cover. This blog will draw information from my individual experiences:
1) Since I grew up on a farm with both grain and cattle, I will most likely discuss cattle treatment. Their treatment is surprisingly similar and great for comparison to public health.
2) The Canadian health care is very different than American healthcare. The comparisons should be interesting.
3) Someone close to me is dealing with epilepsy and all of its complications. Therefore she knows the ‘ins and outs’ of the American health care system. I have permission to blog about her experiences. In order to respect her confidentiality, her name will be changed Amanda. All of the information pertaining to her condition will be approved by her.
4) My parents work a Canadian aid organization that operates worldwide. As such, I have been to various developing nations: Rwanda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India. While in these countries I learned about their health care systems. The purpose of my visit to India was to look at different health options – public care versus private care.
Public Health covers a multitude of aspects. Unlike doctors who solely focus on treating a particular patient, the Public Health field looks at an entire population. The Public Health field’s goal is improve the quality of life for the general population. One of the most obvious ways they do this is attempting to control diseases. They do this through vaccines and tracking disease to isolate cases and a multitude of methods of disease control. However, Public Health does not solely focus on a population’s physical. The field also deals with environmental conditions, mental health issues and social issues.
I am interested in Public Health because of my association with the aid organization. There are a lot of issues that all aid organizations must deal with when working in a country. There are common traits that can be found in the areas that I worked in: having too many children, lack of interest in vaccines, disease control, malnourishment and all of the issues that come with it, etc. Having people learn about these issues and culture of an area with knowledge of Public Health would be very beneficial.
The first three classes focused on what Public Health is and some of the issues that the field deals with, as well as the difficulties face. I find the class very interesting as some of the topics that we covered were new for me. For example: the fact that not everyone has access to health care. Canadian health care has “universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay”. (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/index-eng.php) Unlike the USA, in my province, it is illegal to pay for health care. I look forward to learning more in this class.
Hi Kat, and welcome to Intro to Public Health! It certainly seems like you have a lot of experience in this field already, from your amazing adventures in Africa and India to your experiences growing up in Canada with a very different health care system. It sounds like you have been able to hear some about our healthcare system as well in your time here, and I look forward to your thoughts on the differences between the two and the pros and cons of each.
ReplyDeleteI like your definition of public health, and that you realize how broad a field it is - it definitely does not focus on just diseases, as you mentioned, but also on environmental and social issues.
I am also intrigued by your childhood spent on a farm. What was it like? How big of a farm is it? And what type of aid organization do your parents work for? What are the healthcare systems like in all of the countries that you've been to? I am really looking forward to hearing more from you - really nice job on your first blog!