In the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit

the anthropologist in me (or is it just the same old suspicious world-systemist in me?) is making comparisons between the energy that is quite readily and appropriately expended on prolonging the life of critically ill and injured in chicago (electricity and materials for manufacturing and operating the mechanical ventilators) vs. the energy that is so violently taken away from indigenous children in rural guatemala (food scarcity, absence of government-run sewage treatment+disposal --> diarrhea, all of which manifests as chronic malnutrition).

here, suffering patients warrant fancy machines.

in socorro, suffering children get contaminated wells, juan's 5-foot-deep holes on the footpaths (for sanitation...eventually...labor paid in kCal's by adult male beneficiaries...); energy sapped by malnutrition enteropathy and bellies pregnant with worms; jun ti way rik'in jub'a ri atzan; fewer and smaller red blood cells and inches off children's linear growth potential.

i imagine accusations, eg from critical care docs, that this comparison amounts to a rationalization of euthanasia. but that is a provocatively empty, reflex reaction. i'm trying to be provocative, sure, but simply to call for even more care for more sick people.

...

sadly, it feels dicey when i broach this topic with my teammates in the ICU. if only they knew: i'd be overjoyed if they did what they do everyday in the ICU for a patient in guatemala.