Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Rennie Qin, a 2nd year student from Auckand, blogs about meeting Hans Rosling, the project fair and sightseeing at the first two days of IFMSA GA in Copenhagen.
As of 7pm, 1st of August, the 60th IFMSA General Assembly has officially opened. 1000 medical students hand-picked from 100 countries all around the world flowed into the opening ceremony, looking sharp in dresses and suits.
All this was nothing compared to the excitement when I spotted Hans Rosling on the stage! Shoving away my plate, grabbing a camera, running down the stairs, panting, I was in front of the stage. There, Izzy from Austria, Vinith from Australia and I stood in awe-inspired silence in front of Hans Rosling as he sets up technology for his talk, waiting to soak up the inspiration from every word he utters. Dr Hans Rosling, if not famous for his sword-swallowing antics, his simple but stunning way of data presentation epitomized by gapminder.org, is well-known as the world’s foremost public health physician. While setting up, he casually cracked up a few jokes with us.
As Hans points to the screen with his bamboo stick acquired ever since his talk on Asia’s rise at Ted-x-India, it was like a Ted talk coming to life. I’ve come to realize that Hans Rosling is not there to tell us the solutions of health problems, but merely reveal to us the world as it is – the world that we’ve never seen before – hidden truth about health and economics that surface so effortlessly under his graphics. It makes us question ceaselessly. Why do US and Cuba have the same level of health but vastly different income? Why does some regions of China have the same level of health as US while other regions as Africa? He challenges the traditional way we think about the world in an era when Asia is fast catching up with the ‘developed countries’. Seeing Hans’ presentation is like witnessing the future unfolding in front of me (a future inevitably with 9 billion people). Yet, we are so much richer with the beauty of visual statistics.
Here’s one of my favourite talks by Hans Rosling:
As Day 1 draws to close, the entire three floors of the venue are filled with project stalls. I walked around for three hours hearing about every single project, chatting to project coordinators and fishing for ideas to bring back to New Zealand. It was a very exciting affair – stickers, key rings and project brochures are flying everywhere. I left with no less than 100 pieces of brochure and a T-shirt fully covered with stickers from every country. There I met again Dr Sujit Brahmochary whose talk on Calcutta Village Project in Auckland first inspired me to think about global health. The British are campaigning on climate change and health, the Japanese are ushering people to write messages of support for victims of the earthquake, the Ghanians are running an anti-malaria project and the Norwegians are campaigning for access to essential medicine. The diversity of projects is a mirror image of the diversity of our world. As nations form partnerships over projects, I see the essence of global health: collaboration and diversity – collaboration over health recognizing the diversity of cultural, social and economic circumstances of each nation.
The first two days of GA ended with the National Food and Drink party. Each nation laid down their flags, their favourite foods and national drinks. The kiwi’s pineapple lumps, kiwifruit chocolate, Marlborough wine and dry wheatbix eating competition proved to be quite a hit. After a dazzling night, the NZ delegation set off for a canal tour around Copenhagen harbour. We spotted Europeans sunbathing in their yachts along canals lined by colourful villas; admired the velvet walls, marble floor and crystal lights of the extravagant royal reception rooms and ran around like hippies in the graffiti-striken town of Christiania famed for its freedom and lifestyle.
