Closing the distance
A neurosurgeon uses technology to reduce disparities in medical care and education in remote areas
By Marzieh Ghiasi
Published on November 3, 2011
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/11/closing-the-distance/

Image by Afra Saskia Tucker

“Two worlds, One spirit,” a collection of photography and sculpture by Ivar Mendez, the chairman of the Brain Repair Centre at Dalhousie University, was on display at Musée des Maîtres et Artisans du Québec. His black and white photographs capture the sharp boundary where dark, coniferous forests meet snow-covered mountain slopes in Northern Labrador. This landscape is marked not only by tremendous beauty, but also by human suffering.

Mendez, a trained neurosurgeon, explores humanity’s struggles through art, while seeking to alleviate it through medicine and technology. I sat down with Mendez prior to a discussion on his work on September 24, which was organized by former McGill professor, Dr. Norman Cornett.

In recent years, Mendez has made headlines by facilitating the adoption of remote-presence robots to provide specialist neurological consultation services in remote areas of Canada. Remote-presence robots allow physicians to operate in a clinic thousands of kilometers away, using a video game-like joystick to move a robot throughout. These robots can rotate 360 degrees, and have a monitor that shows a live-feed of the physician. In addition, they are equipped with high-resolution cameras and sound equipment, allowing for real time examination and interaction with patients. Despite the unusual experience of interacting with a robot, Mendez says that patients, family, and staff quickly adapt to this futuristic associate.

In Canada, as well as in Mendez’s native Bolivia, aboriginal populations – often located in remote areas – suffer disproportionately from lack of access to specialist care due to distance and climate. Mendez excitedly speaks about the potential to expand such services and take expertise to where it is needed most.

“To listen to the heartbeat of a baby in the mother’s womb thousands of kilometers away,“ Mendez said. “[to] determine which mothers are at risk.”

He views technologies such as remote-presence robot systems as a means of reducing disparity and providing equal access to medical care, even in remote areas such as the Canadian arctic. These communities, too, are quickly accepting and integrating technologies. Mendez describes a community in Northern Labrador that, after the province proved unwilling to purchase a remote-presence robot, came together to raise funds to do so independently.

Though he has helped found neurosurgical units Asia, Africa, and South America, Mendez’s interest in technology is not limited to the medical field. In another initiative, presently in its second year, children in Inuit communities in Northern Labrador are provided with laptops and put in touch with children from Nova Scotia and the Bolivian Andes.

“These kids can communicate with art, math, and music,” he said. “[This] instills in children the idea that, no matter who we are, our contributions have the same value.”

Mendez also emphasizes the importance of investing in cross-cultural exchanges. He described a school in the north of Canada where, for the first time, two students have entered 12th grade, and will be the first two high school graduates in several years. Communicating with graduating students in Nova Scotia via the laptops motivated these students to continue their education. In this way, the introduction of innovative technologies can provide services to people who lack access, and offer these communities a means for growth.

“The change will come from within,” Mendez said. “We can help provide the environment for the children to one day become the leaders of the future, and change their own communities.”

The animation above is based on illustrations from the Flight of the Hummingbird by Haida Canadian artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. The story, which is from the parables of the Quechuan people of Ecuador, is about a small yet persistant hummingbird who is determined to save his forest from a fire drop by drop, while other bigger animals stand back, believeing that nothing they do will make a difference.

I’ve written before about Wikileaks and how it provides a venue for whistleblowers to leak documents without fear of being caught. Since I last wrote about Wikileaks, which was precisely 2 years ago, the site has leaked numerous other documents, and for obvious reasons, has faced some strong legal challenges. The site appears to continue operations none-withstanding and in fact today released a 2007 classified video from Iraq dubbed “Collateral Murder” (Huffington Post) showing air-strikes killing a Reuters’ news photographer among other individuals.

Of course, whistle-blowing organizations like Wikileaks have detractors, and some of the criticism is definitely valid. But Thomas Jefferson didn’t say “Information is the currency of democracy.” for no reason. Corruption exists, and therefore the placement of checks and balances, including systems to reveal information in the interest of the public, is a necessary part of preserving our democratic societies. Some of these truths may not be particularly pleasant to see. However, Asa says it best:

There is fire on the mountain and nobody seems to be on the run.
There is fire on the mountain top and no one is running.
One day the river will overflow
and there’ll be nowhere for us to go
And we will run, run… wishing we had put out the fire.

There is incredible injustice in our world today, and many individuals and groups who consider themselves to be above the law. But the whistle-blowers, journalists, and photographers who risk all to uncover truths are much like dukdukdiya, the little hummingbird, doing their part to put out the fires before they consume us all.

We ask them, “What are you doing?”
They say, “We are doing what we can.”

Every year, for more than twenty years or so, the McGill Anatomy & Cell Biology Students Society has held an “anatomically correct” bake sale at the systemic human anatomy class. This year’s bake sale was pretty amazing and apparently in an hour managed to raise nearly two-thousand dollars for a charity for deaf students here in Montréal! I took a couple of (low-quality) cell-phone pictures. Yes the last one is legs and kind of NSFW.

This year I’ve begun to venture into acrylics. I’m still trying to get used to the medium and learning how to manipulate the colors. But, I seriously love it. It’s so much fun to work to paint. This following is a 4″x6″ I completed today. I assure you though I am not a narcissist, I just use the most readily available subject.

Here’s some stuff that I began but never really finished amidst the chaos of piling work. Hopefully, once I finish these I can begin working on interesting things… as I am slowly edging towards the anatomy of animate/inanimate objects (but that stuff won’t see the light of day until my buildings stop looking like Lego castles and hands become noticeably distinguishable from feet ;)) Oh yeah, and I threw a random crayon collage in. While edible looking, crayons are crazy to work with and manipulate. I now have mad respect for people like this. Needless to say I also empathize with the plight of 5-year-olds.

I wanted to share the links to some online artists whose works I enjoy tremendously. Each of these individuals, with their unique styles and influences, seems to be breaking barriers in artistic creativity.

Popaganda, The Art and Crimes of Ron English
http://www.popaganda.com/
Ron English

From his site: “Born in Dallas, Texas 1966, Ron English ‘paints, infiltrates, reinvents and satirizes modern culture and its mainstream visual iconography on canvas, in song, and directly onto hundreds of pirated billboards. English exists spiritually somewhere between a cartoon Abbie Hoffman and a grown-up, real-life Bart Simpson, delivering a steady stream of customized imagery laden with strong sociopolitical undertones, adolescent boy humor, subversive media savvy, and Dali-meets-Disney technique. Dedicated to finding the sublime in the everyday and breaking the momentum of the didactic approach to art and life, English offers up an alternative universe where nothing is sacred, everything is subverted, and there is always room for a little good-natured fun.’ ”

*Take a look at Bombing Begins in 5 Minutes, a reinvention of Picasso’s Guernica.

The Monster Engine
http://www.themonsterengine.com/
David DeVries

In his own words: “I’ve loved art from the time I was a little kid– especially comic books. When I got older, I actually got a chance to draw my childhood heroes– and got paid to boot. It was a dream come true. I was asked to paint spiderman swinging over New York and Wolverine slashing robots with his unbreakable claws. My job was to make these heroes real for all the people who loved them. It wasn’t easy but I learned to make them colorful, detailed and full of action. Comics, however, weren’t the only thing I painted– I also painted monsters for Universal Studios, but those monsters weren’t as cool as the ones I saw lurking in my niece’s sketches. It was then, at age 33, that I decided to take all the lessons about color, action and detail and apply them to little kid’s drawings. It made me remember my childhood and also realize that no matter how old I became I could always see things like a child.”

The Optic Nerve
http://www.theopticnerve.com/
Katie Miranda

In her own words: “I’m American, I’m Jewish. I live and work in the West Bank, occupied Palestine where I teach art to kids, draw cartoons for the Palestine Times, paint murals, perform a circus routine for detained Palestinians at checkpoints, train volunteers in non-violent resistance and crisis intervention and generally try my best to stick it to tha man. No the Palestinians haven’t slit my throat, no they don’t hate Americans, no one has tried to push me into the sea yet. I’m also an artist and I draw and paint the life here… Five years ago I made my first trip to Israel. I worked on a kibbutz in the northern Galilee for three months where I learned and lived the Israeli side of the story. Now I am learning and living the Palestinian side. Anyone who comes to the conclusion that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is two equal sides squabbling over a piece of land is profoundly mistaken.”

* Take a look at her moving collection Postcards from Palestine.

Meet the World
http://www.brazilianartists.net/home/flags/index.htm
Icaro Doria

and finally, take a look at this.

The Puzzle

I’ve never used color before (at least since grade one). On the the twenty hour train ride, most of which was actually quite pleasant, I had the fortune of spending the day part of the trip staring out at the monochrome, desolate and rather morbid New Brunswick landscape. Supplied with four pencil crayons, shades ranging from black to yellow to bright red, I decided to give colour a try. Colouring is a lot more fun than I expected, hopefully I’ll become more comfortable and versatile in the future, and may be move on to a real canvas! *gasp*

Something random I drew last week, a new addition to my very slowly growing sketch gallery, aptly named “the music, the moment”… the source happens to be my current ringtone.

I’ve put up a few of my drawings over here, including–

The Phantom
23×26 inches (58x68cm)
This one is pretty self-explanatory. A good movie, an excellent musical (which I’d like to see by the way– if anyone has extra tickets lying around), and a brilliant book!
And The Collage which I originally intended to call “La femme sacrée” or “Le voyage de la femme”. I am actually very fond of this piece because it was very personal to me in terms of its symbolism, and I learnt a lot of new techniques while working on it (shading metals—what a pain, but worthwhile).