Knowingly putting yourself in danger to be the first line of defense against a potentially epidemic outbreak, deserves special recognition. Everyone should know these doctors' names. We need to make international heroes of these people.
"Three days ago, three nurses working in the same Ebola treatment centre alongside Khan died from the disease."
I hope each one of them gets the recognition they deserve.
source - http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200525821.shtml
The emails I've had from her are horrifying. What's being reported in the media is the absolute tip of the iceberg - entire communities are being wiped out, the infection rate is growing in an epidemic fashion, and there are growing concerns that there's an airborne (droplet) transmission method, as there are numerous inexplicable infections. That said, it could also be the prevalence of bush meat which is helping to drive this.
There's talk of the Red Cross imminently pulling out, as it's no longer safe for their staff to be there.
Can you say "sacrifice zone"?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fighting_SARS_Memori...
We'd be less likely to send people into battle if we actually had to pay our soldiers what they're actually risking.
On a more contemporary note, research has shown that if you replace an intrinsic rationale (e.g. patriotism) for an action with an extrinisc one (e.g. money), its impossible to go back. I imagine its a lot easier to create patriotism than money, so people want to stick with that solution.
That's debatable. Swiss mercenary pikemen enjoyed two centuries of well-earned respect for their fighting abilities, for instance. Or you can take the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine emperors, or the Gallowglass mercenaries. The issue was more often that many of them would not hesitate to change sides if it was seen as more profitable.
Well at least that's not a concern in the case of ebola researchers.
Though it should be said that employers were not necessarily more trustworthy, and could be prone to "forget" to pay the mercenaries they had hired once they had no more need for them.
Ugh, what a shame, fingers crossed he's the 10% that survives the disease.
If only for his detailed knowledge of the disease, yes. One thing that is overlooked when considering the ethics of "that patient is more derserving than others" (see comments about nurses above) is how often throwing everything at a small number of otherwise healthy patients helps finding unexpected cures. It was very true for rich patients with HIV for instance.
Firstly as if anyone is going to be able to know all the doctors names even in this particular case and I'm sure there's plenty of other epidemics out there right now that are also dangerous.
Secondly there are more than doctors working on this case. Three other nurses also died as per the article.
Thirdly this story is hitting all the major news channels. It's currently top of HN. People are knowing this story.
Fourthly we don't live in a fantasy novel where knowing someone's name means something. Could we on HN at least talk about constructive things not emotive clap trap, we see this ever single day anyway from sites like upworthy.
But perhaps the fact 3 nurses died before this and it didn't rate as high as this important news (Or OP's comments) you should at least look internally to what exactly the news is and what it means.
Feel free to youtube Christopher Hitchen's round up of her.
(argument provided for illustrative purposes)
I've heard of Florence Nightengale. But I've also heard of Mother Teresa. My knowing even good things about a person doesn't necessarily impact how good of a person they actually were. I remember reading books as a kid with Mother Teresa in them as a totally sanctified figure, but what Christopher Hitchens says about her is probably true, and so she's not worth the respect that I gained for her and carried with me for so long.
I think it is an astute observation. For all I really know, Florence Nightengale was just an unskilled doctor-wannabe who ran around Crimea amputating people without cause. People that I think of as good aren't necessarily so. We have to remain skeptical.
In the long run, by her use of statistics, she invented modern nursing and much of the practice of evidence based medicine, but she got started by establishing a name for herself.
edit - you can also even apply the same technique to try and warn people of bad things. Go wild with it.
Random people idolised does not equal anything.
As per the best reply to what about..... squirrel.
It doesn't do much for the dead person, but the names we chose to celebrate shows the traits we value. We make people heroes to celebrate what they did, because we dream of a world in which anyone would be willing to make the same sacrifices for other people.
The argument in having them known rather than Nobel Prize laureate is usually is that its easier to make strong emotional connexion with drama queens than nerds scratching theory; in that case, the strong emotional connexion seems far easier to get and we could use medical role models.
Remembering names is hard, even as little as for -- but most people don't seem to remember the names of, say each Kardashian sister, or even Top Gear hosts: they can still point at "the smaller one". Having quotes, biopics, decumentary, rewards... the usual pagentry would allow people to have attitudes towards adversity that are humane, constructive and varied. One of those nurse could be spinned as the Alpha, controlling, head-strong, devil-may-care head nurse; be known widely for that, and still have a first name that most people can't spell. And another nurse could be more fearful, and go through acceptance of her fate, etc.: nothing really new to the ethico-cultural complex.
Someone mentionned Mother Theresa earlier: I doubt anyone can spell her civil name; people still know how loving she was, how opinionated, how indifferent to medical cure she surprisingly proved herself to be and have a complex image of her moral stance. Her influence on reconsidering extensive medical treatment as opposed to simple care at the end of a life is a interesting recent development in medecine.
Wonder what their names were?
knowing their names means something
remember them
since you wondered.