Live interaction of Student-teacher are very essential for engagement of students, especially, in an e-learning environment. Online learning is most effective when courses are led by a live teacher and students can interact with that teacher in real-time. The mere presence and active involvement of an instructor motivates students and helps them navigate challenging content, inspiring them to improve their performance. During such interactions, instructors bring in knowledge beyond the curriculum. Keeping this in mind, we organized a live hangout session with Prashanth, our subject matter expert and students of ePHM 2015. The students and Prashanth discussed on various topics like systems thinking, national health programmes, private sector regulation, etc. Here is a video of their interaction.
Dr. Vishal Rao and his team have developed this unique device for throat cancer patients who lose their voice box. Most patients of throat cancer who undergo laryngectomy are unable to speak due to removal of voice box. The patients eat through their mouths, but cannot breathe through their nose. They instead breathe from a hole in their neck.
Aum Voice Prosthesis – This device helps throat cancer patients whose voice box is removed after surgery to speak again, this time using their food pipe which functions like a voice box. They have named it Aum Voice prosthesis, signifying a primeval sound for a patient who regains his voice to communicate again.
This is a video showing Ramakrishna – my first patient for prosthesis speaking. He is a watchman. He went back to his work speaking effectively. He was unable to afford the western prosthesis owing to cost constraints. The European make prosthesis (most popular) costs around 25-30,000/-. the American make costs 15-20,000/-. The Aum voice prosthesis is priced at Rs. 50.
