To Prevent Suffering; or Enable Wellbeing
The quality of a life may be seen as a balance between wellbeing, and suffering. This view provides us with two targets if we seek to utilise our resources to improve lives, namely: The first removes the barriers individuals face in pursuit of a life of wellbeing. Ill-health, lack of education, inadequate economic resources all…
Hepatitis B: A shallow review
Summary Key Uncertainties A note on terminology Hepatitis B is associated with confusing terminology. What is Hepatitis B? Hepatitis B is a disease caused by the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV). It can cause both an acute, and chronic hepatitis (liver infection). It is transmitted via body fluids (blood, saliva, semen or vaginal fluid) from an…
What would you do with $100 000?
The question of how to use our resources, whether they be time or money, to contribute to the betterment of the world is difficult to answer. Any model which attempts to answer this question must consider a broad and diverse range of factors, such as unintended consequences, second-order effects and marginal impacts. For this piece…
Strengthening Health Systems: A robust approach to doing good
Introduction Prevention of global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs) and improving global health and wellbeing are top priorities for those concerned with doing good effectively. My aim is to make the argument for a focus on health systems as a means of facilitating a broad range of cost-effective interventions, and thereby serving an avenue to, and…
How can we justify a heart transplant?
A 40 year old male presents to the emergency department with shortness of breath, swelling in his legs, feeling generally unwell. He is not sure exactly when he last felt himself, but certainly for the past few weeks he has not been able to take his children out to ride their bikes or keep up…
Navigating the paths of life
As we progress through life, we must inevitably navigate through crossroads, moving down the path of life and necessarily leaving opportunities behind. At each moment when the choice is made, a path goes on unrealised. But more than this, the person you may have been had you taken that path fades into non-existence. It is…
It’s all philosophy in the end
“May you live every day of your life.” In life we often strive for the philosophical, the reasoned approach, the thoughtful decision, the meaningful action. A picture of a contemplative life, to me at least, reflects the life well lived. A person who acts with purpose from a structure of well reasoned values in the…
Do we already live in utopia?
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.” Oscar Wilde The history of…
The value of a statistical life
The economic value of a life, or value of a statistical life (VSL), is a dollar amount that an individual or society is willing to pay for the purpose of avoiding the mortality of one individual. A controversial and contentious subject, intuitively many are hesitant to give credence to the belief a life may be…
Beyond the RCT
A 21 year old male presents with ascites and lethargy. He gives a history of fever, jaundice and right upper quadrant pain about one year prior. The walk from his home in an adjacent village took him all of the day yesterday, arriving at the health centre late in the evening. This morning the rapid…
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