Jamaica's ethnomedicine: its potential in the healthcare system

Herbal remedies have always been used by Jamaicans for treating a variety of illnesses. However, although many of these medicinal herbs contain beneficial bioactive ingredients, not all of them are safe! Some have toxic components while others, if taken inappropriately, can harm the body's organs and even mask the symptoms of more serious conditions. The authors propose integrating these "alternative" medicinal practices into the healthcare delivery system, beginning with a systematic testing of the remedies used, so that their bioactive ingredients can be identified and dosages standardized

Clinical Research: Where is the "laboratory" and what are the methods? - [abstract]

Clinical research is obviously necessary if medical care for patients is to improve. Over the last several decades, however, there has been a tendency to marginalize this branch of science. The reasons for this trend are obvious enough - lack of scientific training of investigators, pressure of clinical responsibilities, substitution of product testing (eg drugs, devices) for sciences, etc - but the solution is not. Clinican scientist control two unique resources - access to patients and an understanding of clinical problems - that should translate into control, if not a monopoly, over the clinical research enterprise. Unfortunately, this resource if squandered. In this presentation, a perspective on clinical research at the present time, at least from the North American perspective, will be offered. It will be argued that medicine has responded very ineffectively to changes in the academic environment. As a result, clinicans are deeply confused about where the appropriate "laboratory" is situated and what constitutes the method of enquiry for clinical research. In conclusion, a view on what might constitute the elements of a programme to restore that balance will also be presented.(Au)

Caribbean cooperation in health: a new vision for Caribbean health

The initiative promotes health as that state of well being which goes beyond the absence of disease and includes mental, spiritual and emotional health. In addition, it recognizes that the factors affecting health go far beyond the ambit of the health sector and encompass the physical and social environment, and the individual's genetic makeup and lifestyle. Thus interventions for improved health must include education for healthy life choices and skills, food security, satisfactory housing, access to potable water supplies and proper disposal of waste. In the Caribbean the debate on health will be expanded from health sector reform in which greater focus is placed on the intrinsic value of health as a resource for sustainable human development. It is one of the four (4) pillars of the people-centered development implicit in the CARICOM Charter for Civil Society, along with education, wealth and freedoms associated with democracy. Further as the Caribbean seeks to maximize tourism as a, if not the, key engine for economic development, the health sector will strengthen the partnership with the tourism and hospitality sectors and play a significant role in making the Caribbean a safe destination

Ethnics, medicine, and society in the Caribbean

While the Medical Faculty of the University of the West Indies has produced many outstanding scholars and practitioners over the past 50 years, social processes in many Caribbean countries have resulted in much suffering. Despite this, the social roots of disease and suffering often have been left out of our medical teaching and ethical discussions. The moral basis of medical care is oriented not only by the individual suffering of patients, but also by the collective experiences of humankind. Hence, failure to engage the social aspects of suffering undermines the moral and pragmatic aspects of medical practice. In the Caribbean, if you are poor, you are likely to have a poor health status. So ethically, medicine and medical teaching need to respond to social suffering, as health and social problems are inseparable. Moreover, the last 3 decades have all seen the call for respect for persons and justice as important values in medical practice in many societies. These values have given medicine its contemporary identify, stressing the paramountcy of the welfare of the patient, the need for informed consent, the requirement to make decent health care equitably available to all, and the importance of empathy and kindness as hallmarks of humane medical care. Historically, the practice of medicine has rested on two pillars: medical knowledge and expertise, and irreproachable medical conduct. Unfortunately, in the Caribbean society a huge discrepancy exists in the time and attention paid to these essential pillars. Nearly all of a doctor's occupations have ethical implications due to the nature of care involving persons: therefore medical teaching and conferences that focus only on the scientific and technical aspects of medicine, without addressing the ethics of care for patients or the developing and improving of the ethical competence of students and practitioners, are incomplete.(AU)

The Caribbean state, health care and women: an analysis of Barbados and Grenada during the 1979-83 period

This book developed from a study designed to examine the levels of efficiency and adequacy of state health care policy and service provision with respect to women during the 1975 to 1983 period in Barbados and Grenada, two small post-colonial states in the English-speaking Caribbean (AU)

Health, social equity and changing production patterns in Latin America and the Caribbean

This publication examines the relationship that exists between health and human development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The frame of reference for this analysis is provided by the proposal put forward by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on social equity and changing production patterns and that of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on health in human development. For ECLAC, the economic and social objectives of development are closely connected and must be considered together in national development policies. At the same time, it is essential to increase productivity and equity if the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean are to enter the next millennium with improved prospects for developing economically and competing in global markets

Van medicijnman tot hoogleraar/specialist / From medicine-man to professor/specialist

The medical care in Suriname started with the Amerindian medicine-man in the prehistorical period. The African medicine-man entered later and the surgeon entered with the arrival of the Europeans. The surgeon was trained in Europe and here in Suriname he trained his successors. In the 18th century some university-trained settled down, while all medical affairs were settled with the establishment of the Collegium Medicum in 1782. A physician could no longer settle without an adequate diploma or without taking an examination. In 1838 the "Commission for Research and Control" replaced the Collegium and a division was made in urban and regional physicians. At the Medical School, opened in 1882 and closed in 1891, 24 district-physicians were trained. After reopening in 1899, physicians, surgeons and obstetricians were trained, but from 1939 onwards only physicians. On 26 September 1969 the Medical School was closed at the proclamation of the Medical Faculty of the University of Suriname. The school turned out 313 medics, and 99 continued their study abroad and 22 finished it at the Surinamese Medical Faculty. Of the 434 students, 87 graduated to doctor medicine and 173 became specialists. P.C. Flu and E. van der Kuyp became respectively professor and professor extraordinary in Leiden. 12 alumni, all doctor medicinae and medical specialist, became professors at the Surinamese University. (AU)