My 2016 summer internship at the Montgomery County Health Department
allowed me to have various experiences with the health world. Because of our focus on the local county’s health,
we hardly discussed international health.
The only time we dealt with international health was with the
tuberculosis (TB) patients. I think of
this experience as having been slightly international health related because
the active cases were immigrant related.
I cannot give many details because of HIPPA regulations, but the active
TB cases had people who were immigrants or had been into contact with immigrants
to the U.S. I am not suggesting that tuberculosis
is only brought into the United States, but it is one of the factors of TB more
often than not. Before coming to the
health department, I had no idea that tuberculosis was still an issue in the
United States. My previous knowledge was
about the stories of tuberculosis patients being placed in quarantine hospitals
in the early 1900s. Thankfully, we are
no longer that savage with our treatment of these ill people. However, because tuberculosis is such a
contagious disease, the patients and their social circle are handled with
care. When a patient comes in for a tuberculin
skin test, they are normally injected in the forearm on the anterior side. The test can only be read after 48 hours have
passed since the injection. If the test
results with an induration (lump under the skin), it is more than likely the
test is positive. From there, the
patient’s primary care provider will make the decision on treatment.
My experience with tuberculosis at the health department greatly
increased my curiosity on the disease. I
started researching for articles and information on TB in the United
States. I found it interesting that I
could hardly find 5 relevant articles on the topic. I think this failure in information further
reiterates what one of the TED talks we watched in lecture was saying. The media is not reporting (correctly) on a
wide range of topics. Unfortunately in
this case, the topic is negative versus the positives facts from that
particular TED talk. It is still our
right know the health facts of our nation and to monitor the situation. As for the future of tuberculosis, hopefully
we will continue our progress in its prevention and treatment.
Erin Biesterveld
Second Year MPH
Excellent insights!! Yes indeed, its problematic to posit that infectious diseases come from outside the borders. Whereas its true that globalization, international travel and transfer of goods have made all regions susceptible to diseases that move fast. TB tests are a reality for all internationals coming to US, whether as a student or applying for immigrant status. TB and now MDTRB is a scourge in many parts of the world and lots of work is being done to address them. We will read quite a bit about them in this class. And as you very correctly said, having the right information with all constituents is an important part of the interventions.
ReplyDeleteErin, great insights on two important topics: tuberculosis and how the media reports health issues. In my undergrad, all of the nursing students were required to get TB tests each year before the start of clinicals. We were also required to get certain vaccines and, of course, the flu shot each fall. I know some of my classmates who even had a false positive on the TB test were required to get a chest x-ray just to be certain. It is crucial that we take this disease very seriously, even as students, because of its highly contagious nature. I also agree with you on how sometimes the media can incorrectly display or over exaggerate health issues. The examples are numerous; it would be an interesting subject to report on don’t you think?
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