I believe that diversity is a wonderful thing, for it provides us with different viewpoints and ideas that we may not have thought of earlier. In my opinion, perspectives different from ours can give us valuable information and help improve the field of medicine. While this field is rather successful in the US, there is no denying that India is still under-developed when it comes to modern medical practice. To review a different approach and to compare how professionals work within the same field, I worked in both the US and India.
In India, the feature I noticed from the start was that oftentimes people in rural areas do not use hospitals for care, rather self-diagnose and treat each other due to the cost of healthcare in India. Unlike in the US, there is no social security money or healthcare insurance for everybody. In India, if you have money, you can afford to get care. If you are financially underprivileged, you do not get the same care. Although there are government hospitals, which are free of cost, due to the population in India, you do not receive the care you would at a private hospital. This is a big difference between developed and underdeveloped healthcare systems around the world and how it affects the health of one’s community.
Yet another feature that I noticed is how fortunate I am to live where I am now. While I volunteered and worked for some rural areas of India, I noticed that some of them lacked basic necessities such as clean water, proper hygiene, and preventive care. There is a great difference between hearing about poverty and witnessing it with your own eyes. When you see people not having proper toilets and having to go out in the fields without knowing how it can affect their health negatively, it is heartbreaking. This not only helped me cherish what I have but also encouraged me to help those who are less fortunate.
Having raised money for people in rural areas and after working with medical professionals there, I have gotten more confident about my desire to help people. Not everyone has enough financial resources for basic healthcare and disease prevention. Moreover, the qualifications of some healthcare professionals are very poor due to a lack of proper education. My experience with witnessing poverty and its damaging effects on healthcare and life, in general, is something that I find deserving of more awareness. This is why people need to not only hear more about such cases but also be encouraged to help them financially. Even a small penny donated to such locations can be very important for someone’s recovery. That way, the competence of healthcare workers can be improved, and patients will have access to better healthcare.
Coming to the US and working here have made me realize how diversity is preached everywhere but oftentimes not practiced as well. Since I was on a student visa and from India, it was very hard for me to find a job here. Not all companies want to hire internationals because they believe we take the jobs away from the Americans. Personally, we just want to gain experience, work hard, and use our knowledge from our degrees to better help our country overcome poverty and help people to grow back home.
In conclusion, diversity is a very valuable thing that provides different perspectives and approaches. The socio-economic issues in India deprive locals of basic needs, which are taken for granted in America. To improve the situation in India, the competence of the medical professionals needs to be improved, and the funding should be increased. While diversity is preached in the US, oftentimes, it is not practiced here. Most American companies believe that foreigners will deprive locals of their jobs. In reality, the former just want to gain experience and work hard. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved, and the value of diversity will be used not only in theory but in practice as well.