Ebola Outbreak: An Interview with Dr. Wilson Wang

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

What does a robot, Jedi and Wi-Fi have to do with the Ebola crisis? In 2015 I spoke with Wilson Wang a medical doctor by training, who was a Senior Clinical director at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) at the time. We spoke about his work with IRC on the 2014 Ebola outbreak and his career in medicine and public health.  

As we deal with the coronavirus here in New York City, I thought with this would be a good time to share this episode. Stay tuned for the next episode of Talking Taiwan. I’ll be bringing back Dr. Wang to speak about how his Ebola work led him to establish Waking Doctors and his current work on COVID-19, the coronavirus in New York City.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• The origin, mission and work of International Rescue Committee
• Wilson’s career in medicine and public health leading up to his work with the International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• How Wilson balances the practice of medicine with health management
• How IRC was asked to create an Ebola treatment unit (i.e. a hospital) for Ebola patients
• How more people died in the 2014 Ebola epidemic than in all of the Ebola epidemics of the past 35 years
• How for nearly 40 years there hadn’t been reliable medical record keeping about the treatment of Ebola patients
• What the JEDI app acronym stands for
• The robot created by Vecna to be used in Liberia
• U.S. reaction to the Ebola outbreak
• What’s guided Dr. Wang in his particular career path

Related Links:

Dr. Wilson Wang’s website where he writes about his work: http://wilson-wang.squarespace.com/

Articles about Dr. Wang’s work with IRC on the Ebola epidemic:

http://time.com/3615990/ebola-electronic-health-records/

ihttp://www.fastcolabs.com/3039512/fighting-ebola-with-a-robot-and-an-app-called-jedi

Partners in Health: https://www.pih.org/

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder: https://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Beyond-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0812973011

An article about the controversy over Dr. Craig Spencer, a volunteer Doctors Without Borders physician who returned to New York with Ebola: https://time.com/3535902/craig-spencer-ebowla-jokes-lack-empathy/