Seattle Biomed, which until a few months ago branded itself as SBRI for Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, regularly hosts public education sessions targeted at laymen. I went to a lecture series called “Global Health 101” which they hosted on Thursday, February 25. The format was that they had snacks and a social, then an introductory lecture with everyone, then they had four employees go into separate conference rooms to give 20-minute presentations. The employees in the rooms were to give the same presentation three times to make the participant experience one hour. We guests were to choose a presentation, experience it for 20 minutes, hear a bell, then travel to another room. I always enjoy this format; organizations take note!
Despite the event’s name, the topics were specialized. They were waterborne diseases, leishmaniasis, fungal infections, and fungi for health. These topics must have been chosen by getting employees who already had public speaking skills to talk about their current research, and in fact, everyone gave a good presentation.
I wish events like this were better marketed to a younger crowd; mostly it was wealthy retirees there. I met this doctor there and he was saying he worked in general practice for his whole life but his wife died and he just retired and now he wanted to volunteer to help people in other countries. I suppose for the world community this is a good thing but it made me sad to think that he worked a job that was mediocre to him and only now that he is elderly and has limited societal modeling to imprint on his life that he can actually do what he has always wanted to do.
There was this other woman who told (in the form of a non-sequitur question about the lecture) one of the speakers that she was about to take a vacation to “Asia” and she wanted him to recommend a broad-spectrum antibiotic that she could have her doctor prescribe here in America before she left, in case she got sick. The speaker was not a medical doctor and the presentation was not about medicine. I am not familiar with the practice of getting antibiotics from a doctor in anticipation of sickness, and I worry about promoting resistance, and I do not like the idea of self-prescription based on symptoms, and I could list other problems that I have with this mentality, but I hope anyone reading this would already know my feelings.
In a fungus lecture this woman said she was walking her dog and she named a neighborhood where rich people live, and she said that it is “clean” there. And she said the dog tried to dig a hole in some park but he threw dirt on her, so she stopped him. Later in the day she felt sick and her question was whether she had a fungal infection. She also added that on another occasion her dog tried to dig a hole and she got sick again. The scientist told her to go see a doctor.
Are these people my social peers? I meet people like this regularly because they go to the places that I go. Why was I at this event? Why were they there? Why is it primarily the wealthy retired at these things? I do not drink, but they had a lot of wine at this thing and a lot of food. It seems like there ought to be moochers for that even if they were not gawkers like me.