When Dr. Jim Hotz attended the Ohio State University School of Medicine, a specialist in infectious diseases showed his tuberculosis bacteria in his class.
“And he said,” You will probably not see another case of tuberculosis in your career, “said Hotz, 75.
“I go down to Georgia and it was everywhere,” he said. “Last year alone, we treated 21 people with tuberculosis.”
Hotz founded Albany Primary Health Care in the South Georgia area -for 47 years. His work stands out in the short documentary of the Oscar winner, Ben Proudfoot, “Doc Albany”, which premiered on Sunday at the Tribeca Film Festival.
“Dr. Hotz has spent his entire career ensuring that the people of the Rural Communities are careful,” said “Doc Albany”, Teresa Barreira. “He knows how to work the system and fight for his patients.”
Hotz is not foreign to light. He inspired Michael J. Fox’s film of 1991, “Doc Hollywood”, about a young Crackerjack doctor who ends in a small southern town despite his dreams of big cities.
Hotz initially thought he would work in Athens, the headquarters of the University of Georgia, but was found in Leesburg, Georgia.
He was accompanied by his brother -in -law, who had been his school roommate. The couple thought they could do anything for a few years before going to something bigger.
“What we didn’t understand was the amazing challenge of going to a community that [hadn’t had] 30, 40 -year -old doctors, “said Hotz.” So in a county, we were the only doctors. “
The first woman to see him had cervical cancer: “he bleeds as big as his fist.”
“When you do not have a health provider there, you are in advanced illnesses,” he said.
In addition to diseases, he has also treated the farm injuries, poisoned by pesticides sprayed in pecan orchards and snake bites.
“They had a couple of boys who were hunting pigs. There are wild pigs. They use dogs to hunt them. They run after them,” said Hotz.
“And these guys ran barefoot through a swamp,” he continued. “A boy said,” I think a bee chopped me. “And I said,” This is interesting.
In an unusual case, Hotz treated a farm worker who developed cryptococcal meningitis, a serious fungus infection, from a pigeon droppings exposure while working on a loft in hay.
“So there are some kind of these peculiar things that you get a lot of exposure,” he said. “I can not say -you are the number of people we have taken care of who fell from deer.”
Hotz said hunters are usually fell asleep on these high platforms while waiting for deer to enter the rank.
But the problems that are more common than their fields are high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
When it started, 3% of their patients were diabetic and 10% obese.
“We are now sitting at 70% obese,” said Hotz. “We manage 8,010 diabetics, 14,000 people with obesity, 16,000 people with hypertension.”
His medical group also deals with about 1,400 Patients with HIV. He saw his first AIDS patient in 1983, when there was no local infrastructure to deal with the disease, so he developed an innovative program of rural HIV.
Technology has significantly transformed the health landscape.
For example, Publicis Sapient developed a digital system to place healthcare professionals in dismissed areas. The tool appears in “Doc Albany”.
“If we can help more people like Dr. Hotz to do their job, we can start closing the gaps in healthcare access to the whole country,” said Barreira, head of marketing and communications of Publicis Sapient.
Limited resources have contributed to the recent propagation of tuberculosis, a disease that can be traced back to ancient Egypt.
Researchers blame Covid-19 Pandemic to delay antibiotic diagnoses and treatments, as well as increases in post-paid travel and migration of high-prevalence areas of TB.
More than 10,300 cases of contagious bacterial lung infection were reported in the United States last year, up to 9,600 in 2023. Kansas saw the largest leap due to a outbreak in the Kansas City area.
In NYC, 839 TB were recorded, an increase of 684 by 2023.
“What we realized is that, if it comes to New York City, there is no reason that I cannot reach South Georgia,” said Hotz.
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