On the Road in Rajasthan: Vehicular-Caused Bone, Joint Damage in India

Lifting a motor bike poses its share of musculoskeletal hazard.

Amir also told us about shootouts at the toll plazas when locals, who objected to paying for a trip they usually could get for free, opened fire on the toll collectors.

Putting in a new road may not be so easy when all the costs and complexities are included in the calculation. As in the case of new drugs, new roads have serious side effects, and there are risks and benefits.

Facing these challenges, where do the innovations and breakthrough technologies come from to make roads safe? Clearly, I do not know. I am an immunologist, not a civil engineer, and I lack the intuition of an Einstein, Darwin or Newton to conjure a way forward to improve this aspect of global health. As a long-time investigator, however, I know a problem worthy of research when I see one, when it is time to think big and when it is time to think outside the box—or at least make the box bigger. Traffic injuries are such a problem.

Introspection

I am not sure whether I am ready to exchange my work in rheumatology for something new, but if I were, I would mark its start to the backseat of a Toyota Land Cruiser roaring and rolling down the wild roads of Rajasthan.

David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine and immunology at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. He is also chief of rheumatology at the Durham VA Medical Center. He was the editor of Arthritis & Rheumatism from 2000 to 2005. He was the first physician editor of The Rheumatologist, serving from 2006 to 2011.