cucoh.

This past weekend, I attended a conference on healthcare that was run at my school. It is called the Canadian Undergraduate Conference on Healthcare, or just CUCOH.

I've always wanted to find a career that has something to do with health and healthcare. For as long as I can remember, I always thought that meant I would have to study science, so that I did. I entered university last year to study science, but somewhere along the way I have changed my mind. I am now in the process of figuring out where I want to be in terms of health. I am leaning more towards the social aspects of health. Ultimately, I think both the social and medical perspectives are shifting towards dealing with upstream roots (the causes) rather than downstream solutions (bandages on symptoms), which is good since upstream methods tend to be more effective.

What I thought was great about this weekend was that although most of the people I met were studying science and were for the most part intending on becoming doctors, the presentations and speakers addressed a wide range of topics. It really got me thinking about technology in health, genetics in health, health in a global perspective, and the future of health. There is more to health than meets the eye! It not only confirmed what I have been discovering this past year, but also introduced so many different ideas for me to think about.

By far, my favourite thing was the discussion panel. There was a panel of experts and we were able to ask questions and have the panelists discuss the questions and issues brought up. I submitted a question, but unfortunately it wasn't touched. I was interested to know how we can trust governments and big agencies to make decisions for us, if they can be bought out by corporations? That sounds very vague, but it is happening. The FDA has approved products like Truvia and aspartame that have absolutely no benefit to our health, and are in fact dangerous. So, how can we trust them? I don't think there is a right answer, but I was actually very interested to hear the opinion of an economist and a politician. Oh well.

On top of CUCOH being a great learning experience for me, my friend Tiff came up for the weekend (for the conference) and we got to hang out and catch up.. it was so nice!

Here we are at the banquet. It's always fun to get dressed up. Also, isn't the pen on the left the coolest thing ever?? Yeah, it's a pen in the shape of a syringe!