My Grand Challenge
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My Grand Challenge of choice is Engineering Better Medicines. I chose this Grand Challenge because of my passion for healthcare, and the realized necessity of tailoring medicine to recognize that health disparities- especially those that are racial in nature- have an astonishingly adverse effect on the quality and length of life of those who suffer from it.
Why GCSP?
I first heard of GCSP through a former scholar Jethro Ssengonzi. He advertized and spoke about it a few times and after looking into it more via Google, I learnt it was something that was of great interest to me. I feel that being in this generation has especially shown me that there are many, many problems that our world is facing.
Even though I am interested in the Biomedical field, the big picture of acknowledging the problems of our world has never escaped my mind. In fact, we are plagued with epidemics of many issues- wildfires across the globe, racism and acts of violence and terror.
That being said, I firmly believe it is the responsibility of those who are on the planet to take care of it and its inhabitants. Even from a young age I've always thought I had solutions to the biggest problems before understanding nuance and politics. There's too much carbon in the air? Well aren't diamonds carbon? Why not harvest the carbon and make diamonds?
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Regardless, it was easy to be pessimistic. Corruption is more common than care in too many countries and with more people in power interested in making green than being green, I didn't think many others would care.
But with Grand Challenge. I realized there were thousands of students like me from all over who knew there were key issues worth studying, investigating and dedicating time to. I have hope- because there are people just as passionate as I am, who are working for real change in our world, and I am so honoured to be a part of that.
Engineering Better Medicines and Realistic Vision
Ideally, they wouldn't be racial health disparities as these disparities are social in nature. There are higher rates of mortality of people of non-white descent and especially African descent in the nation. Due to faulty and bunk science as well as misinformation, many African Americans are treated poorly in health care. There are many individuals in health care to this day who believe that African Americans have thicker skin and thereby a higher pain tolerance and thereby do not require as much pain medication as white patients do. Or, that African American patients exaggerate their pain and as a result of this myth, many African Americans die in hospital care from a lack of proper treatment. Understanding of this is currently the nature of the world, and there are many more white health care workers than there are health care workers of color, there has to be work done to educate all health workers of the existing conditions for African American patients and patients of color. The goal of education and implementation of fair health practice is very realistic. It needs only to be undertaken seriously and enforced