Medical Brigades to El Salvador and Honduras: Travel imaginaries and volunteer tourist recruitment

In this paper, I explore travel imaginaries in the recruitment of participants to short-term medical brigades in El Salvador and Honduras. I look in particular at how trip leaders and organization web sites frame the volunteer tourist experience, drawing on familiar, shared imaginaries of poor, backward international settings, and related performative interventions that echo white colonial relationships. Recruitment messaging offers little specific or informed sense of place, ignoring the national histories and socio-economic circumstances of the receiving countries. As a consequence, the health profiles and capacities of El Salvador and Honduras are finally obscured in favor of the valorized performance of visitors and externally-driven protocols and care. The efforts of some brigade sponsors and related organizations to improve health-care delivery to local communities, in particular fundraising among brigade participants and other donors, would seem to separate the link between travel and volunteerism. They continue, however, to reinforce broadly-held imaginaries of international poverty and economic backwardness and related rescue by the Global North. A more realistic understanding of Honduran and Salvadoran economies and politics remains elusive and requires a reorientation of voluntary engagement.

Telemedicine during COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons’ Knowledge and Implementation

Telemedicine can significantly improve health care delivery for patients with limited access to medical services. Innovative uses of this kind of technology in the provision of healthcare is increasing with the emergence of the virus causing the disease COVID-19, there is an urgency to expand the use of technology to help people who need routine care. This study aimed to assess oral and maxillofacial surgeons' knowledge of telemedicine and its applications, and incorporation of telemedicine into their clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: This is a cross section, Questionnaire based study conducted among oral and maxillofacial surgeons in Saudi Arabia from November 2020 to January 2021. The study sample included 200 oral and maxillofacial surgeons from different regions in Saudi Arabia which has been calculated depend on reality of the Saudi health workforce during the next ten years 2018-2027 book and the total number of OMS and oral surgeons who was registered was approximately 300. The self-administered questionnaire (which was constructed after extensive reviewing of the literature in the same context) was distributed among the selected surgeons using online platform; the components of that questionnaire were: socio demographic characteristics, knowledge of telemedicine technology, using of telemedicine before and during COVID-19 and security of telemedicine technology. A Scoring Criteria used to indicate the knowledge of OMS and oral surgeons towards the use of telemedicine technology. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 21. Results: A total of 69 OM surgeons were responded, of which 52.2% were females. The knowledge of the surgeons regarding telemedicine was moderate among 43.5% (mean: 11.6; SD: 4.12, out of 20 points). Surgeons who were working in the private clinic (F=2.982; p=0.027), those who had heard of telemedicine (t=4.987; p<0.001) and those who implemented telemedicine at a current workplace before COVID-19 (t=3.873; p<0.001) had significantly better knowledge score than the rest. Conclusion: Although there was an increased implementation of telemedicine use during the covid-19 pandemic, the oral and maxillofacial surgeon’s knowledge about it seems to be low.

Beyond Notes: Why It Is Time to Abandon an Outdated Documentation Paradigm

Clinicians spend a substantial part of their workday reviewing and writing electronic medical notes. Here we describe how the current, widely accepted paradigm for electronic medical notes represents a poor organizational framework for both the individual clinician and the broader medical team. As described in this viewpoint, the medical chart—including notes, labs, and imaging results—can be reconceptualized as a dynamic, fully collaborative workspace organized by topic rather than time, writer, or data type. This revised framework enables a more accurate and complete assessment of the current state of the patient and easy historical review, saving clinicians substantial time on both data input and retrieval. Collectively, this approach has the potential to improve health care delivery effectiveness and efficiency.

Beyond Notes: Why It Is Time to Abandon an Outdated Documentation Paradigm (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Clinicians spend a substantial part of their workday reviewing and writing electronic medical notes. Here we describe how the current, widely accepted paradigm for electronic medical notes represents a poor organizational framework for both the individual clinician and the broader medical team. As described in this viewpoint, the medical chart—including notes, labs, and imaging results—can be reconceptualized as a dynamic, fully collaborative workspace organized by topic rather than time, writer, or data type. This revised framework enables a more accurate and complete assessment of the current state of the patient and easy historical review, saving clinicians substantial time on both data input and retrieval. Collectively, this approach has the potential to improve health care delivery effectiveness and efficiency.

Text Messaging in Oncology: A Review of the Landscape

Text messaging via short messaging service (SMS) is a common route of communication in the United States and offers many advantages to improve health care delivery compared with other forms of mHealth. Text messaging is easy to use, is convenient, is more likely to be viewed than e-mail, and can be tailored to an individual recipient’s needs. Despite evidence that patients with cancer desire more mobile-based communication, there are few examples of successful text messaging interventions in the literature. This narrative review examines the current landscape of SMS-based interventions across the continuum of cancer care, including addressing behavioral change, attendance to screening and follow-up appointments, adherence to treatment, and assessment of symptoms and quality of life. Finally, we explore some of the barriers to implementation of a successful text messaging intervention.