Why I'm here (on Saturday afternoon)

Saturday afternoon and I'm at the university in front of my computer and wondering why I'm here. The excitment of finally starting the thesis seems to be getting lost in a pile of books, articles and notes. I have three more months before we fly away (tickets were booked yesterday!), it seems plenty of time but the last month has gone so fast I'm beginning to worry.
I'm trying to work on a literature review but things are going slowly. As there is little literature specifically regarding short term medical missions the literature review is ending up much wider- in particular I am looking generally at the role of expatriate medical professionals in developing countries, and at the role of NGO's in health care provision. This is leading me up all sorts of interesting pathways and diversions- International Health and NGO's both being rather large areas.One thing I am really starting to wonder about is who should be responsible for providing health care. NGOs and expatriate professional teams may provide a great service (of course whether they do or not is an entirely different thesis question!) but should they be "doing" or should it be the responsibility of the State? If it's the States responsibility then what is the role of non-State agencies? The reality is that in this market-driven world we live in State responsibilty is obviously decreasing, and private health care providers have become increasingly important. This does leave an important stop-gap role for NGOs who can provide free or cheap services the private companies don't want to do and the government can't or won't provide. Perhaps this is precisely the reason both long-term NGOs and short term medical missions are an increasingly common feature of health care provision in the world today. Whether or not this is the way things should be I'm really not so sure. Of course thats what research is all about- exploring that which you are really not sure about. As Einsten is reputed to have said- "if we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research"!

Scholarships, computers and methodology

The pace of life and study seems to have picked up quite significantly this past week. The most significant event was notification that I have been awarded a Masterate Scholarship . Now I can really get into this knowing I will have the money to get to Latin America and carry out the research. Very exciting!
I have also recently acquired a laptop (to be more specific a second-hand IBM Thinkpad). Although I've been getting by on reams of paper and shared computers I now feel I can really get going- I just have to figure out how get it hooked up to the university network.
As far as the research itself goes I am currently wrestling with the methodology, specifically my role as a researcher and/or nurse. I had thought I would perhaps work with the teams while collecting data however I'm now wondering (prompted by some readings from the nursing research literature) that in fact that taking a dual role may well be confusing for community participants, not to mention that it may possibly bias the research. If I was studying the teams themselves then full partipation would probably be appropriate but I'm becoming more interested now in the researching medical missions as they relate to the commnuity and local health services so I am now defintely moving away from the idea of doing any nursing at all.
While all this is going on in my head my supervisor has reminded me it is time to start making contacts in Honduras. I am using the internet to start compiling a list of teams planning trips and organisations I might contact. I probably should also look at sending emails to various organisations and contacts. However if there's anybody actually reading this who is aware of medical teams who will be in Honduras between Nov. 04 and Feb. 05 I'd love to hear from you- click the comments link below to post me a message!