Category: Personal Experiences

Visiting Edinburgh, Scotland, was an eye opening experience for me filled with many situations that I would never have at home. Despite this daily sense of thrill and spontaneity, 2 things remained consistent each day. Every morning I would wake up and enjoy a cheap £3 coffee at Cowgate Coffee House, and every day I would leave Cowgate, head to the University, and learn about the NHS (the UK healthcare system). At first this seemed like simply a routine, however as the weeks passed and I learned more about the NHS, I started to notice similarities between the two daily events. 

The UK prides itself on its free public healthcare system, much like how the owner of Cowgate boasts his perfectly brewed coffee and delicious breakfast pastries for relatively low prices. And rightfully so. The NHS is commonly referred to as one of the most cost effective systems in the world providing all citizens with quality healthcare with no upfront fees. On the other hand, the coffee shop is so attractive that I would often have to leave well before class to deal with lines out the door and no available seating. 

The crowdedness of the Cowgate Coffee House on a daily basis speaks to its success, however with the Scottish NHS we weren’t sure. As part of our HNRS352 class, we wanted to gauge the popularity of the NHS among Scottish citizens by interviewing people off the streets of Edinburgh. We found generally positive reviews, with the overall consensus being that they would receive high quality healthcare and never had to worry about cost. This is because their system is funded through general taxation dependent on income. Paying through tax allows all UK citizens to access healthcare without the headache of post treatment medical bills. 

With the NHS, the UK has effectively created a healthcare system that both provides affordable treatment to all of its citizens and is generally well liked and free of controversy. This achievement cannot be overstated as many countries (including our own) face mass conflict and political upheaval when deciding on a national healthcare system. While the NHS is not without flaws, it achieves the two main goals of any healthcare system: to provide healthcare to as many people as possible and to satisfy the country the best it can. So, if you ever find yourself living in the UK, know that you will have access to affordable, quality healthcare. And of course, when in Edinburgh, be sure to visit the Coffee House on Cowgate.

 

During our time in Edinburgh, our class had the opportunity to attend two conferences put on by the Global Health Governance Programme, which is based at the university and headed by Professor Devi Sridhar. On Wednesday, June 22nd we attended the Covid Research Workshop followed by the Sustainability Workshop the next day. The former featured three speaker sessions, followed by a lunch break and a panel. During these sessions, topics were covered such as Long Covid, Community Health Workers, and Antimicrobial Resistance. I really enjoyed these sessions as I felt they covered sort of unexplored, less popular topics associated with the pandemic that I hadn’t really thought about and pointed out crucial gaps in the healthcare system in the UK and the rest of the world. For instance, Dr. Cervantes Wild talked to us about the impact of long covid, and sort of how we weren’t really prepared for it and still haven’t responded appropriately. I hadn’t considered how unprepared the UK and U.S healthcare systems were for long-term impacts like this from the pandemic and her presentation provoked my thoughts about how this could be improved.

The second conference, focused on sustainability, was extremely interesting, but sort of left me feeling apprehensive about our future. Dr. Moritz Kuenel’s work was particularly striking to me. His team turned garbage into fuel! It was really fascinating to learn about this process and about his plans for its application. However, he did acknowledge it wasn’t really planned to be used widely. Jane Hopton, the Programme Director and Sustainability Lead for NHS Lothian, described some of her experiences in her position and discussed the policy side of things regarding sustainability and the pandemic as well. One story of hers in particular stuck with me. She explained how it took her 3 months in her role to implement an extremely minor change in practice toward being more sustainable. She assured us not to feel hopeless by this story, and seemed to practice celebrating the small steps because that’s what you have to do. However, for some reason I couldn’t help but continue thinking about it. I do feel scared about the future of healthcare and the planet, and it is somewhat disheartening to hear stories like that. However, it did give me a sense of realistically, what healthcare design and operation looks like. As much as we can talk about all these great ideas, putting them into fruition in the real world is much more challenging. Overall, I really did enjoy getting to hear from the experts and meeting Devi was wonderful as well. 

                   

The beautiful Playfair Library where the conferences were held!                                    Conference Agendas

 

     I remember being engulfed by Scotland’s atmosphere when I first stepped off the plane into Edinburgh Airport. The feel and smell of the air, the intricacy of the building’s interior layout, the sustained chatter and movement amongst fellow flyers: it didn’t strike me as peculiar as I initially thought it would. This trip would be my first time abroad. Accordingly, I spent numerous hours researching about life in Scotland and the UK in general. It wasn’t until the bus ride to Inverness, Scotland and my two-day stay there where I realized that it was surely going to be all that hyped it up to be. The aromatics of the water and cafes we ventured, the awe-inspiring architecture surrounding us, and the unfamiliar accent boasted by the locals: these were aspects that I would continue to experience throughout my stay in Scotland.

     During our subsequent stay in Dundee, we visited the V&A Museum, where we explored its galleries and had a discussion about design. It was a class trip and some felt as if another visit was owed in order to truly take in the craftsmanship displayed in the museum.

 So, a few days later, a few friends and I went a second time to take a deeper look at the individual galleries in the museum. Near the end of our visit we sat down and each picked up a book related to design. The book I picked up was about the different materials used in design. Originally, I figured I would be reading about “exotic” materials such as onyx and what not. To a bit of my surprise, the chapters were written on the most basic building materials I could imagine.

     The book was titled “Materials for Architectural Design.” It was written by Victoria Ballard Bell and Patrick Rand, both architects who work in the Research Triangle in North Carolina. The first section was about 30 pages all about glass. It talked about the history of glass, the different types of glass and how they’re prepared as well as what it’s composed of. It also listed and described a few examples of buildings, including their utilizations of glass. After spending half an hour entranced in the book, I came to a realization about the buildings’ designs— everything was intentional. To some, this information is nothing new. To me however, an aspiring biomedical engineer just getting their foot in the water, it was a fresh perspective. In that moment I looked at the objects around me, not only marking off certain design aspects as solely aesthetic or ornamental, but as features that added to its functionality.

     I left the V&A Museum with a fresh perspective on design that I could now carry over to a multitude of other fields, especially healthcare. Investigating the kinds of materials used in current medical devices along with considering innovations in designs that use these materials can lead to much more efficient and serviceable tools in the health field. I hope to use this viewpoint as a way to contribute monumental renovations in the healthcare industry.

In class, we spent much of our time examining healthcare systems through the lens of ecosystem maps, a versatile design tool used for service systems. We mapped out the National Health System of Scotland, the health systems of five different other EU countries, and finally, we used it to create our own ideal healthcare system. The usefulness of the ecosystem map for analyzing any size of system is apparent just by looking at one. They are capable of breaking down huge amounts of information even for the most complicated ecosystems, from national healthcare systems to a small sub-system on a university campus. Alternatively, it can be used for building a new ecosystem from the ground up by evaluating the foundation of its environment. 

Combining my new experience with ecosystem mapping and my experience with one of my favorite places, I have created an ecosystem map for another system, closer to home: the BeAM makerspaces at UNC. Here you can see the result, a sneak peek into the behind-the-scenes operations done at BeAM. You can also view a full-size service pathway of the user education system developed after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether you are already a user at BeAM or have never heard of it before, I hope that this simple example of a familiar place will give you a glimpse of what we have been doing in Burch Scotland 2022. 

This study abroad experience has been nothing short of memorable. From listening to clinical engineers and former ENT surgeons to attending COVID and Sustainability workshops, we have had the opportunity to learn about healthcare from the engineering, clinical, and public policy perspective. From all of these talks, one of the specific conversations that stuck out to me was about Maggie’s Centers, a unique approach to caring for cancer patients. During this trip, we learned the importance of incorporating empathy into healthcare and Maggie’s does just that.

Maggie Keswick Jencks, a cancer patient herself, knew all to well the stress and burden of cancer treatment for both the patient and their family. Clinical oncology settings often do not offer the emotional support they need which is why Maggie envisioned this type of care facility that focuses on the person’s mental and social wellbeing. In 1996, the first Maggie’s Center opened in Edinburgh. To date, there are 26 UK centers and 3 national centers. These centers are places where cancer patients can go to find information and support during their treatment. They are home-like and welcoming. They are typically located near the hospitals and relatively accessible for the patients. Most importantly, they are cost-free.

This approach to healthcare is innovative. Maggie conceptualized the idea from personal experience and founded her brand on empathy. Maggie’s Centers are patient-focused, not profit-driven. This design needs to be modeled more in patient care. Oftentimes, physical vitality is prioritized over mental and emotional wellbeing, but ultimately the patient’s comfort and happiness should come first.

As students of the Honors class NHS Scotland- Policies, Problems, and Innovative Solutions, our study abroad program provided us the opportunity to tour the University of Dundee’s Center for Anatomy and Human Identification laboratory. Throughout the two-hour experience, we learned about the comprehensive and complex donation system, whereby many donors are local residents. The tour was segmented into three different parts. The first part of the tour was an introduction session where the head of the donations department discussed the responsibilities and policies followed by curators, researchers, and students to ensure the utmost respect is had when handling donors’ bodies. The second was an immersive exploration of the dissection zone; the third was an informative walkthrough of the storage spaces and preservation techniques.
This event was a first for me, like many other students in the program. While some students, such as myself, were more curious than others, I believe the situation had both positive and negative aspects. Cadaver donation is paramount to furthering our modern understanding of the body and its systems, whereby strides in learning can lead to innovation and a more well-rounded approach to healthcare. I found it extremely interesting and valuable to witness how medical students and researchers examine the body via cadavers. Comparatively, the experience required a great deal of emotional processing. Most of us have never seen a corpse in real life, thereby making the dissection aspect of it both rewarding but also challenging to evaluate. However, I am incredibly grateful to the program administrators at UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Dundee for organizing the tour and the cadaver donors for giving us an opportunity that few our age are offered.
This experience changed my perspective about healthcare because, in retrospect, I learned how essential body donation is to improving healthcare. For medical students in training and degree-holding researchers/medical professionals, a wide array of skills, techniques, and ideas can be gained and created using a cadaver. As mentioned in the tour, med-students in residency can practice surgery before operating on a live patient, reducing the number of mistakes or errors in a real-time surgery. Alternatively, forensic pathologists can access parts of the body that enable them to better understand anatomy systems in ways that cannot be achieved using a living patient. Concerning biomedical engineering, a new product/part could be manufactured and outfitted to a cadaver before trials on a live patient to achieve the lowest levels of invasiveness or scarring on the body during insertion. In summation, I would highly recommend and strongly encourage prospective students of this UNC study abroad program to participate in this experience, as it was both eye-opening and enriching for someone interested in healthcare.