an itinerant observer

Innovative app wins top prize at AKU’s first-ever Hackathon Four innovative solutions in emergency medicine receive awards Innovators at Pakistan’s first-ever medical hackat​hon at the Aga Khan University have proposed new ways of tackling challenges facing Pakistan’s emergency rooms (ER). HistorER , the winning team at the Hackathon, came up with a unique QR (quick response) code system to address a persistent challenge faced by ER doctors. Patients are often brought to emergency by family members or by bystanders who are not aware of their medical history. In the absence of critical information, doctors face delays in performing life-saving procedures.     The HistorER team has suggested that every person carry a medical card with a QR code with vital details: blood group, allergies, current medication and previous operations. Scanned, the QR code would provide doctors immediate access to information and the ability to ini...

Day 1 of expedition: On which all, except me, start the ascent to Rakaposhi base camp. Photo of Rakaposhi taken from the apple orchard of the Minapin guest house When I woke up the day our expedition was to start, I felt a bit odd. I couldn’t quite pin point the oddity. I ignored the intangible (not quite bordering on distress at that stage), changed into my tracks and went out for a run, as is my norm. I wanted to get my joints freed up enough so the ascent wouldn’t come as too much of a shock. Surprisingly, I couldn’t run much as I lacked energy, so I returned to the guest house where preparation was afoot, somewhat counter-intuitively, for a hearty breakfast for the eager mountaineers. A simple low fat, high starch/protein meal might be the better approach at the beginning of an ascent, but not being a professional trekker who was I to say that aloud. Seeing the parathas , omelets, scrambled eggs and toast did nothing for my appetite. Au contraire, it made...

What’s the chance of a bad outcome,lik e death, in Karachi? Based on anecdotes circulated on social media and what you read in the news, you might assume that chances for a series of unfortunate events remain high in this city. This prompted a friend to do some calculations to gauge chance of an unexpected death in Karachi, compared to any major metropolitan city in the U.S. Assuming how the percentages were arrived at was fairly accurate, the bottom line, if true, was intriguing: the likelihood of an untimely, unexpected death was similar in the two places. Delving into death rates in Karachi vs. elsewhere was perhaps meant to be an intellectual discourse following the meaningless death of a colleague’s sister in Karachi. Being gunned down outside a famous restaurant after a meal there is hard to rationalize as an expected outcome of a botched cell phone robbery attempt. But this is Karachi. And such occurrences are unfortunately all too frequently heard and shared. Ev...