Empowering Women to help Women in the 3rd World

With perhaps the most significant element of empowerment being to help someone help themselves, and with gender issues being so alarming in numerous 3rd world environments, I would like to challenge female physicians to join us in empowering female medical personnel in mobile telemedicine clinics in the third world. They can do this without ever leaving home. Let me explain.

As you may know, telemedicine enables physicians from thousands of miles away (or across town) to see, speak to and diagnose many medical conditions in patients who visit a telemedicine clinic. HELP has an international reputation and history of implementing such clinics in some of the remotest regions on earth.

Imagine female nurses, physicians or even clinic volunteers being assisted with the help of physicians around the globe and meeting the medical needs of people in their communities. Women with this type of technical support could quickly make significant strides toward being viewed as a much more significant asset to their community, especially if the telemedicine clinic required "only" female personnel.

As - in many locations today - women are brutalized by men, obtaining medical assistance from other women is obviously more effective and well-received. If those same women are empowered with advanced technical capabilities, their service to the entire community could change. Engaging female physicians in the developed world to assist with this just makes the empowerment come full circle.

Obviously there are many variables involved depending on location and area challenges. I for one, think this could be very effective in some locations and might just be a bold enough idea to reach beyond some of the gender bias that is so prevalent in many societies today.

What do you think? It may seem like a simple idea, but some of the most powerful ideas are - at their root - quite simple.