2025 Articles

8/2/2025
 

Reminiscence  of bygone days, memories of what (once) was.  Nostalgia need not be for  long ago or far away, sometimes one can feel longing for something  quite recent. Though my fishing trip just happened, I desire for its  peace still.  There is something soothing and calming to the soul,  watching a river gently flow past.  Perhaps its resemblance to our  body's circulatory structure, reveals how much a part of nature we are.  Or that its motion reassures us of our existence, a testament to our  being.
 

The tranquility of the deep gorge I  was in was comforting and peaceful. The crows, magpies, and occasional  jump of a fish, did keep my attention immersed in its beauty. But the  modern world still found ways to disrupt it with over flying aircraft  and the occasional whistle of a distant train.
 

Such places are everywhere, as are  peaceful people who live there and are oblivious to the intrusion of  what lays beyond (see old & new, July 18).  I recall another such place on a mountaintop in Central America. A  couple of caring RN nuns, ran a semblance of a clinic there and  occasionally, health practitioners from the outside world came and  helped out, for a few days or weeks. I talk about it in my book, Practicing from the Heart in the Age of Technology - (A SALUTE TO OUR NURSES).  The gentle folk, living in those remote places, had only a day-to-day  task of keeping themselves and their animals, safe and cared for.  What  help, occasionally came to them was a blessing. A gift from another  world, beyond their perception, perhaps, even from gods. It was not to  be taken for granted, only appreciated.  I felt ashamed that my  intrusive world was encroaching violently upon theirs.
 

But of course, the other side of  this reality is the fact that modern technology used in training medical  students and healthcare professionals - will ultimately lead to better  providers as well as discovery of better ways to research, develop,  manufacture pharmaceuticals as well medical and other devices that will  help everyone, including people in isolated areas. The trick is not  destroying one way of life, while improving the other. Then we can all  enjoy the peace of nature, no matter our lifestyle.
 

Reza Ghadimi 

7/20/2025

A National Geography documentary starts by showing a small caravan of four camels and four men walking across the hot sands of Mauritania in West Africa. The hooves of the camels and sandals of men displace the dry sand with every step, leaving a long trail to the horizon, dramatically revealed by the slow rise of the camera for an aerial view.  Suddenly the camels are alarmed, as a faint rumbling sound is heard far away.  The men stop and watch amazed as the whistle of a train is heard in the distance.  Soon several locomotives come into view pulling a long train of hoppers carrying iron ore. Men and beast watch as twenty first century interrupts their ancient way of life.
 

The film reminded me of another documentary across equally desolate and isolated yet incredibly cold Siberia. Where temperatures dip below -70C.  There too, people have their primitive lives disrupted by modern transportation systems. New man comes with trains, trucks, machinery and remove the iron, copper, lumber, etc. from their backyard and leave destruction and waste to their land and often sicken them in the process. As a journalist traveling the cold of the arctic said "a country is not a place on a map at all, but a story full of people you meet and places you visit." Interestingly, while these places and thousands of others like them are exposed to fresh realities, the healthcare system is not one of them.
 

There are thousands of nationalities worldwide. It might be difficult for us to understand other lifestyles and traditions, but they do exist and have needs that are disrupted by modern life. The information technology/internet is reaching them faster than the amenities it portrays, adding to the disparities they see and feel.  Among them and perhaps the most necessary is healthcare.  These people see this as a new way of slavery.  It is time this is changed and they receive their share of prosperity.  The absurdity of it is that it cost so relatively little to provide healthcare to every corner of the world.  Telehealth and telemedicine can educate and supervise people in these areas to care for themselves. We have the means, even the money, it just takes a little caring.

  

                                                            Reza Ghadimi

7/11/2025

There is a question
Unanswered for centuries and millennia
That has left us bewildered.
Scholars and prophets have asked
All for naught
And left it to be taken as faith
A divine cause.   
 

Gypsies and dervishes dance to it, puzzled
Some look to the cosmos for clues
Others into a drop of water.
There are those, silently sitting
By the shore or mountain top
Pondering a metaphysical resolve.   
 

As to who are we?
Why are we here?
Why is here, here?  
 

As we grapple with the elusive answer  
The root question gets forgotten!
And that may be the reason for
The emergence of iniquities everywhere.   
 

                                                            Reza Ghadimi