Clothing and toys are not the only imports coming from China these days: one in four doctors in the United States is Chinese.
As China increasingly becomes a powerful force in the economy, it is also becoming a major force in health care, with India rapidly catching up, according to Dr. Lincoln Chen, president of the China Medical Board of New York. Chen gave an overview of the health care systems in both countries in his Dean's Lecture at the Nursing School yesterday, entitled, "The Dragon and the Elephant in Global Health."
It's not hard to see why: the combined populations of India and China amount to approximately 30 percent of the world's demography and of the world's diseases, Chen said.
Because of their collective "weight" in global affairs, "the outreach of India and China is exploding," he said. They are devising and applying new technologies to health care, such as combining traditional medicines like acupuncture with modern technologies and providing other countries with important resources such as low-cost generic drugs to treat AIDS in Africa.
However, China and India's domestic health care systems are ill-equipped to cope with a shifting pattern of illnesses: "diseases of poverty," like malnutrition, are now outnumbered by "home-based chronic conditions." India has the most diabetics in the world and China the most people with hypertension, two examples of such illnesses.
Both countries face many problems, from a high efflux of highly skilled health workers to a lack of common medical standards across hospitals.
The question becomes an issue of which health care models are best for China and India individually, with many variables coming into play.
Chen said he believes that "both [countries] are large innovative societies that will craft their own solutions" from which other countries can learn.
A guest speaker for the Dean of Nursing and the School of Medicine, Chen epitomizes the current international and interdisciplinary focus of the School of Nursing in "local and global engagement," Nursing Dean Afaf Meleis said.
Six years ago, the Nursing faculty made internationalism a priority in its teaching. The school has begun inviting more international lecturers, partnering with sister universities in other countries and sending more professors and students abroad through programs like Penn in Botswana, Meleis added.
Nursing senior Komal Patel came to the lecture out of her interest in global health.
She said that she is particularly interested in internationalism as a nursing student because it's important to look at health from a public perspective and looking to other countries can provide valuable insights.
Ryan Leonard, College sophomore, was interested in the "intellectual exchange" between China and the US and how this exchange affects each country, which he said is particularly compelling as China transits from "catching up" to becoming a pioneer.
