Healthcare for All
Sharon Allen of World Telehealth Initiative
on Providing a Philanthropic
Global Healthcare Solution
from Right Here in Santa Barbara
By Leslie Dinaberg | May 4, 2023
Picture a physician in Santa Barbara coming home after a day of seeing patients in a well-equipped, comfortably air-conditioned office. They put on comfy clothes, eat dinner with their kids, do the dishes, maybe consult on some homework and the family’s weekend plans, and then they open up their laptop and do a completely different kind of consulting. If they’re a pediatrician, they could be consulting on children in Cambodia. If they’re an oncologist, they could be helping with chemotherapy protocols in Kenya.
It may sound like sci-fi, but thanks to technology developed in Santa Barbara — and the philanthropic vision of Dr. Yulun Wang, the pioneering inventor of surgical robotics; and World Telehealth Initiative CEO Sharon Allen — physicians from all over the U.S. and beyond are now able to provide medical expertise to vulnerable communities all over the world with just a few keystrokes on their computers from the comfort of their homes or offices.
“It’s so easy; it’s just a couple of clicks, and you’re in Bangladesh, and you’re consulting,” says Allen with a twinkle in her eyes as she describes her experience shadowing a local physician doing an after-work consult.
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