Daily Bruin – Page 224

UCLA study finds that benefits of robotic surgery outweigh costs

Robotic surgery is expensive but its long-term health benefits might pay off in the long run.

Chris Childers, a general surgery resident at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, analyzed financial statements of Intuitive Surgical, a leading surgery robot manufacturer, to evaluate how cost-effective robotic surgery is.

He published the results in a study in August showing robotic surgery is more expensive than nonrobot-assisted surgery. Intuitive Surgical released its 2018 financial data two weeks ago, which the study has recently taken into consideration.

Typically surgical robots cost around $2 million, Childers said. Instruments and accessories used in robotic surgery cost $866 more per procedure than nonrobotic procedures, according to the study.

Melinda Maggard Gibbons, a general surgeon who worked on the study, said purchasing and replacing disposable instruments such as scissors for individual robots also incurs an additional cost.

Childers said robotic surgery is expensive because instruments have to be constantly repurchased.

“You buy a robot (and you) have to buy a $2,000 contract with the company every year,” Childers said. “It costs almost $3,600 per operation.”

Though robotic operations are expensive, Erik Dutson, a general surgeon at the medical center with 18 years of robotic surgery experience, said they can actually save patients money.

“If you have a device that allows you to do a procedure or operation that … results in even one less complication over the course of a year, it basically pays for itself,” he said.

Childers said he believes robotic surgery will not only help reduce complications and costs for patients, but also cut down costs for hospitals.

“Let’s say you perform a robotic operation, the patient is in the hospital for less than a day. That saves money,” Childers said. “You don’t have to pay as much for staff.”

Robotic surgery reduces complications for patients because it is a minimally invasive procedure, said Mark Girgis, another general surgeon with advanced robotic training.

“Patients are able to get their surgery with smaller incisions, (which leads to a) theoretically faster recovery and less pain,” Girgis said.

Girgis said Intuitive Surgical has a monopoly on the surgical robot market right now. However, as technology advances and more companies produce robots, Girgis said he thinks the cost of robotic surgery will decrease.

“How we feel about (robotic surgery) now is not going to be the same as how we feel about it 10 years from now when other companies come out with their own robots that compete with the monopoly that (Intuitive Surgical has) right now,” Girgis said.

Childers said he believes robots will become standard in operating rooms in the future.

“Robots are only going to get more prevalent as you go on,” Childers said. “No one is going to just be doing bare, hard surgery 50 years from now.”

Dutson said he thinks robots will one day completely replace human surgeons.

“We’re already working on ways to do automated gestures … medical robotics are going to have an increasing level of autonomy,” Dutson said. “Robots are going to replace everybody in every field that we have right now, and it’s going to be driven by artificial intelligence more than anything.”

Despite new appointments, undergraduate Academic Senate positions remain empty

Student government officials left 20 out of 21 undergraduate student representative positions in the Academic Senate unfilled for half the academic school year.

The Academic Senate, which decides on matters like enrollment and degree requirements as well as program establishment, has 42 positions reserved for graduate and undergraduate student representatives on 15 committees. Student representatives are responsible for attending committee meetings, providing student input and reporting back to their respective associations.

The Graduate Students Association had filled 19 of its allotted 21 positions as of Feb. 12. The Undergraduate Students Association Council had filled one of 21 positions as of the same date.

The USAC Academic Affairs commissioner is responsible for appointing all undergraduate student representatives to Academic Senate committees, according to the Associated Students UCLA Undergraduate Student Association bylaws.

Three months after making her first Academic Senate appointment, Academic Affairs Commissioner Nidirah Stephens introduced seven appointments to the USAC meeting agenda Tuesday. President Claire Fieldman asked if the confirmations could be delayed for time to review the students’ applications, but the nominations were added to the agenda and confirmed the same day.

Joseph Bristow, the Academic Senate chair, said he thinks student representation on all committees is crucial, adding his office has sent messages to USAC asking them to fill these spots.

“These things are so important to us, and our office keeps sending out messages like ‘Please, you can find out about shared governance through this and (give) your opinions and your insights,’” Bristow said. “Once we have a representative in place, that person can consult widely and give us feedback.”

Until the Tuesday meeting, the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools had no undergraduate representation. CUARS is discussing whether standardized tests, like the SAT, should be used in holistic admissions, said CUARS chair Rene Ong.

Ong added undergraduate representatives bring an important, firsthand perspective as students to committee discussions.

“Who better than students who have recently been in high school, and had to go through the admissions process, and in particular had to go through UCLA’s admissions process, who better than them to be able to weigh in on a lot of these issues?” Ong said.

Following Tuesday’s confirmations, seven committees still lack undergraduate representation. One such committee, the Committee on Library and Scholarly Communications, has been discussing the open access movement, which seeks to ensure scholarly material is made accessible for students and the university at affordable costs.

Other committees without undergraduate representation are the Committee on Academic Freedom and the Council on Research.

Both Bristow and Ong said they noticed a lack of undergraduate student representatives this year in comparison to previous years.

“I’ve been on the committee for three years, and we’ve had good student representation for the other two years so we’re definitely lacking and very much missing a student (perspective),” Ong said. “You know, they’re really important.”

Bristow said he was surprised by the low number of undergraduate representatives, but added he understood USAC was making an effort to fill these roles.

“I just couldn’t believe how many empty spots there were, and I’ve just been wondering what’s been going on,” Bristow said.

Stephens said she has had a difficult time appointing students to the Senate this year because the students she had been reaching out to could not commit enough time to the positions due to their involvement in other campus leadership roles, and that she has had to rethink her recruitment strategy.

“It’s really about educating students and making sure they’re aware of what Academic Senate is, so it’s been an educational process,” Stephens said.

Stephens said she was able to get more appointments – seven in one night – after looking to students who may not be as involved in campus leadership, but are more willing and able to commit their time to the Senate. She added she has been transparent with Senate leaders about the difficulty she has faced thus far.

Christine Botello, a third-year sociology student, said she thinks the positions sounded interesting but added students may not be able to participate fully in those roles due to other commitments.

“I feel like it’s just hard, coming in as transfers, and trying to rush to get everything done,” Botello said. “It’s nice to get involved, but there’s only so much you can do before it conflicts with your pay, which is for you to live here, and also academia too.”

Jennifer Garcia, a third-year Chicana and Chicano studies student, said the lack of student representation may reflect students’ lack of engagement, but added she thinks USAC should do more outreach to students about the positions.

Ong said serving as an Academic Senate student representative does require active participation, but committees make an effort to make students feel welcome.

“It’s certainly not too late for this academic year,” Ong said. “We would very much appreciate having somebody who would participate and take it seriously.”

Last-minute layup leads men’s basketball to best Beavers

Chris Smith hadn’t started a game in over a month.

But the sophomore guard made two of the Bruins’ biggest plays Thursday night.

UCLA men’s basketball (14-13, 7-7 Pac-12) staved off a late comeback from Oregon State (16-9, 8-5), winning 68-67. The Bruins were tied or ahead for the first 38:28 of the game, but the Beavers finally took a two-point lead down the stretch.

With 28 seconds left and the Oregon State lead cut to one, Smith pulled down a missed 3-pointer by forward Tres Tinkle.

He took the ball down the court and slashed to the hoop with 20 seconds left, finishing through a foul to give UCLA a one-point lead.

“I was really just trying to get it into a set,” Smith said. “I don’t really remember how much time was on the shot clock, but I figured we were trying to get the last shot. When I got it cross court, it was just me and Thompson, so I figured ‘Just attack, try to make something happen.’”

Smith missed the and-one and Tinkle got the rebound.

Seventeen seconds later, the ball wound up in Tinkle’s hands again, and he heaved up a deep 3 that would sail through the air and miss everything.

Sophomore guard Jaylen Hands missed both free throws with one second left, but the Beavers missed their full-court prayer and the Bruins held on.

Hands and Smith contributed to the Bruins going 4-of-12 from the line down the stretch, but some unlikely names helped UCLA get out to a 14-of-16 start from the charity stripe.

Freshman center Moses Brown – a 35.3 percent free throw shooter entering Thursday – went 4-of-5, the first time he shot over 50 percent from the line since Nov. 9 against Long Beach State.

“Getting fouled, missing two free throws and giving them another opportunity to score is just like a turnover,” Brown said. “So (I) just (tried) to maximize my possessions and … make the most out of every time I get the ball.”

Freshman guard Jules Bernard scored two points on 1-of-3 shooting in the first half. When Oregon State started using the full-court press in the second half, Bernard said he changed his mindset.

“They started pressing us,” Bernard said. “When teams press us like that, coach emphasizes to attack the basket. I did what I had to do: I attacked the basket, got fouled and made my free throws.”

The freshman scored eight points in the second period, with every single one coming from the free throw line. He finished 8-of-10 on the night, setting career highs in both makes and attempts.

The Bruins led by as many as 12 in the second half, but that lead slipped away due to high volume scoring by Tinkle and guard Stephen Thompson Jr. The two combined for 40 points on 18 field goals to go along with 18 rebounds and 10 assists.

UCLA did things differently.

Its leading scorer was Brown, who turned in a 14-point double-double. Six Bruins finished with between eight and 14 points, something interim coach Murry Bartow said was a result of good ball movement early on.

“Well we keep telling them – and (assistant coach) Tyus (Edney) probably saying more than any of us – but we just want better ball movement,” Bartow said. “I just thought we were moving the ball much better in the first half.”

UCLA picked up 10 assists in the first half compared to just three in the second.

Smith scored 10 points and the game-winner for the Bruins, but 16 and a half minutes earlier, he went viral with a poster.

“It was crazy,” Bernard said. “If you look at the bench when it happened, I got up right away, ran down the bench. I was going crazy.”

The sophomore drove on 7-foot Beaver forward Kylor Kelley – the conference’s leading shot-blocker – and he said he went for the dunk knowing that a layup would have been sent back.

“When I did that little hop-step, I thought I was going to be picked, but I was like, ‘Man, I still have the ball,’” Smith said. “And I saw (Kelley) … and I couldn’t lay the ball up. And I figured I had to try to dunk it and it went in. I don’t know what happened after that.”

Everyone else saw what happened – Smith climbed a ladder and flushed it home.

UCLA will take the court again at Pauley Pavilion when Oregon comes to town with a chance to avenge its 13-point blown lead loss on Jan. 10.

University must cure its inconvenient lack of urgent care options for students

Three weeks into winter quarter, I found myself shivering uncontrollably while sweating through every layer of clothing I was wearing. I looked up at the blackboard and struggled to listen as my teaching assistant discussed Hobbes and Rousseau. My vision went gray and my head pounded. Only two more classes and a presentation to go.

I had a 103-degree fever, and I definitely shouldn’t have been on campus. But what’s a girl to do when her TA docks an entire letter grade for missing one discussion?

I’m not alone. I’ve seen people puke in the mail room, go to class with strep throat or take ungodly amounts of Mucinex to stay afloat academically.

College introduces a whole new germ pool – especially for students in their first year, who have the least experience navigating the University of California Student Health Insurance Plan system. Yet the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center’s hours and the lack of affordable emergency and urgent care leave students stuck between a rock and a hard place – or worse, vomiting in it.

The Ashe Center provides primary care appointments, immunizations and walk-in availability. The center is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Fridays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. The center’s ASAP Clinic is open weekdays, but only until 5 p.m. at the latest.

In other words, if you’re looking to get help from Ashe, you better schedule your medical emergencies within working hours.

The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center Emergency Department is the only 24/7 facility, and it comes with about a $125 copay. Most other urgent care facilities in the area charge a $25 copay and close around 8 p.m., making them difficult to access after classes. Westwood’s only urgent care center closes at 6:30 p.m.

When students get sick, they’re advised to skip class to avoid further contamination. Missing midterms, finals or even participation-based discussion sections, however, can prove detrimental to their grades. In attempting to succeed academically, students are unable to prioritize their health due to restricted health care hours and exorbitant copays. At nearly 45,000 students, UCLA is the size of a small city, but the Ronald Reagan ER, a building partially funded by taxpayer and student dollars, doesn’t provide any student-specific emergency services.

Mercedes Allende, a first-year mathematics of computation student, had to wait hours for treatment at the hospital after being hit by a car while on a Bird scooter last quarter and splitting her chin open.

“It took five hours for everything to happen, and it was annoying because I had my chin open for maybe two hours,” said Allende. “I could have had internal bleeding, and I realize I wasn’t the highest-risk case at the ER, but I at least needed my chin cleaned out so it wouldn’t get infected.”

It’s not just the university’s services, but also its patient communication. There is no reception desk at the Ashe Center, and the closest replacement is the 24-hour nurse line, though it often takes up to an hour to get a response. In addition, UC SHIP services can only be accessed through the wildly unpublicized StudentHealth app – a process which is discriminatory against both international students, who can’t access the app, and students without smartphones.

Cassandra Shand, a first-year political science student, said she had a difficult time navigating the health care system after breaking her toe earlier this month.

“I hobbled with a bleeding toe all the way to Ashe – which was embarrassing and really painful – during their operational hours, and they said they couldn’t take any more patients because they were at capacity,” Shand said.

From there, she took an Uber to a nearby urgent care facility, where she struggled to navigate her health insurance. Not only did Ashe fail to provide accessible, on-campus medical care, but the urgent care options it suggested were equally difficult to access due to unclear insurance protocols, associated costs and travel time.

These are completely unreasonable norms for the nation’s top public university, which boasts an acclaimed health care facility. If a student becomes seriously ill after hours, the only course of action shouldn’t be to walk or Uber to the hospital, pay the $125 copay and hope you don’t have to wait in line for five hours. It’s ludicrous the university doesn’t already offer some form of 24-hour urgent care on campus.

Offering that kind of care wouldn’t require new buildings, just an increased number of medical staff. Making that kind of investment would provide a much-needed service to young people navigating the world of health care and independent living, some for the first time.

I pay tuition to learn about Hobbes and Rousseau because I want to be here. I pay tuition fees because I want to be healthy while I’m doing it. But you can’t learn political theory, much less take a midterm on it, when you’re too sick to be anywhere but in your bed.

It’s about time UCLA recognized that.

Editorial: Westwood Village must loosen up zoning, increase diversity of shops

We all can admit Westwood Village has a relevancy problem.

Empty storefronts lace the streets, and it’s hard to miss the vacancy notices straddling the sidewalk. The Village’s spotty assortment of businesses has made residents look elsewhere for not just their entertainment, but also their food and retail needs.

For a long time, Westwood’s stagnation was tied to its Specific Plan, the document detailing the development standards, land use and types of businesses allowed into the neighborhood. The restrictive plan – last updated in 2004 – has held onto more traditional interpretations of businesses, meaning newer restaurant models and services have been excluded or disincentivized from entering the scene.

Diddy Riese Cookies, for example, which clearly intends for customers to order their cookies to-go, is classified as a fast food, eating up a zoning slot that could be used for a fast food outlet.

The Westwood Village Improvement Association, in its latest attempt to update its business classification scheme, bring in more enticing services and curb the Village’s ongoing vacancy problem, proposed several amendments that include loosening restrictions on what the neighborhood considers a restaurant so that it isn’t inundated with so-called fast-food joints.

WVIA’s changes are promising, but only the first in the many needed to cultivate a diverse business palette in the Village. Westwood has long been prone to copycat services, even with the restrictions imposed by the Specific Plan, and its 38 vacancies don’t just need any restaurant or store setting up shop – they need enticing vendors who can offer something new to the community.

You don’t need to look hard to see the Village’s redundant businesses: Westwood has three Starbucks – four if you count the one inside Ralphs – and sports two drugstores on the same street.

And when stores aren’t sharing the same brand, they’re closing in record time. The association estimates around 16 percent of storefronts are vacant, but even occupied spaces still juggle businesses that rarely stick. KONY Pizza, lasting a whopping eight or so months in the Village, joined Pieology and longtime pizzeria juggernaut 800 Degrees by closing shop last fall. A new pizzeria is slated to replace 800 Degrees, adding to the nearly half a dozen others in the area.

[Editorial: Westwood’s lackluster businesses fail to address local needs]

Andrew Thomas, WVIA director, said the association has been pushing the city to update the Specific Plan to address these kinds of concerns since 2011. The specific changes the city’s planning department will now consider were first introduced in 2017 after the city prodded the association for suggestions for updates.

Westwood’s recent history has largely consisted of experiments by local leaders trying to revitalize the Village, and this board welcomes Thomas’ and the newly minted North Westwood Neighborhood Council’s efforts to unshackle the chained-up business scene in UCLA’s home turf.

But it’s going to take more than some clerical updates to end Westwood’s revolving door and fill its vacancies with diverse, quality services. Landlords, who the association depends on to bring in businesses, seem more inclined to let the Village rot with empty spaces, and these stakeholders need to be engaged alongside the loosening Specific Plan rules to ensure the neighborhood is truly revitalized.

Otherwise, community leaders will be in for a rude surprise when they find they’re welcoming another three Starbucks or CVS pharmacies.

Second Take: List of best director nominees indicate gender inequity remaining in Hollywood

The number of female best director nominees throughout the 90-year history of the Oscars can be counted on one hand.

Although Greta Gerwig’s 2018 nomination for “Lady Bird” seemed to indicate a shift from the Academy’s historical sexism, the 2019 nominees prove Hollywood’s glass ceiling has hardly been cracked. The all-male candidates – Spike Lee, Paweł Pawlikowski, Yorgos Lanthimos, Alfonso Cuarón and Adam McKay – reflect the film industry’s deeply ingrained prejudice against female directors.

Since the first Oscars ceremony in 1929, the Academy has nominated 449 filmmakers in the best director category, only five of whom have been women. But despite their lack of representation at the Oscars, female directors continue to demonstrate their ability to produce high-quality films year after year. Lynne Ramsay, who helmed one of 2018’s best films “You Were Never Really Here,” not only deserved a best director nomination, she deserved a win. Marielle Heller’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace” also displayed a mastery of directing equal to that of any of this year’s nominees.

In the past few years, social movements have challenged the industry’s male dominance. After a recent statistical report underscored the deficit of female-directed films, Time’s Up announced the 4% Challenge, which presses people to work with at least one female director in the next 18 months. Nithya Raman, the executive director of Time’s Up, said the challenge encourages people to work with seemingly nontraditional directors while providing a platform to highlight their efforts.

“The fact that only 4 percent of 1,200 studio films over the last decade were directed by women … tells a very clear story of bias, discrimination and oppression,” Raman said. “Both (safety and equity) are functions of the incredible power imbalances that exist in this industry and a movement has to address both of those in order for things to really change going forward.”

The countless women who have shared their stories of abuse perpetrated by male coworkers and bosses are also catalyzing a power shift in Hollywood. Movements like Time’s Up are finally laying the foundation for equality, but workplace abuse has often prevented women from climbing the corporate ladder.

This misogyny is perpetuated by the fact that men are the principal gatekeepers in Hollywood, which makes it easier for them to establish themselves in the industry. Nancy Richardson, a professional film editor and professor in the School of Theater, Film and Television, said it is commonplace for a cheap, mediocre film to launch a white male’s career. Based on her observations in the industry, Richardson said men are continually offered large films to direct, while women work tirelessly to prove themselves capable of directing a single studio film.

“There’s more mistrust with women,” Richardson said. “We just have not had enough female role models to know what ‘the woman in charge’ is supposed to look like or sound like or act like.”

Richardson also explained that the Academy as a microcosm of the film industry lacks diversity. Consequently, women are underrepresented in the best director category – as of 2018, the Academy was 87 percent white and 72 percent male.

Becky Smith, a professional director and professor in the School of Theater, Film and Television, said inducting more women and minorities into the Academy would help eliminate the self-selective bias which prevents inclusivity across categories. Diversity in the Academy is a necessity, but the fact that a film was directed by a woman would not likely deter men in the Academy from voting for it. Rather, the issue primarily stems from the sheer lack of working female directors in Hollywood, and the disproportionate number of male-centric films that get made each year.

“What women write, what women experience and what women are interested in … I just don’t think it’s respected as much. It’s just not as valid,” Smith said. “The only woman to finally win in directing had to be for a man’s war film because that was palatable.”

That woman was Kathryn Bigelow, who won for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010. And while many cite the victory as a turning point for women in film, Smith said her win reflected the Academy’s bias toward masculinity in films; “The Hurt Locker” is a typical “man’s movie” – an Iraqi war film complete with a myriad of bomb detonations and a nearly all-male cast, led by Jeremy Renner. In order for a woman to receive Oscar recognition, she must produce the kind of film that men enjoy.

The truth is that the female perspective is not considered as valuable as the male perspective. While women account for 50 percent of moviegoers, only 28 percent of films from 2007 to 2018 were led or co-led by female protagonists. The Academy has recognized female-centered, female-directed films like “Lady Bird” in the past, but the instances are few and far between. Women can write and direct war movies, dramas, comedies and the most sentimental “chick flicks” imaginable – all of which have the potential to be of Oscar caliber.

But for now, the five men who represent the best of 2019 denote the long road to equity ahead. Hopefully, the Hollywood elite will soon realize women can do more than stand on stage in their glistening gowns and present award after award to the omnipotent Man.

Alumna’s documentary, nonprofit combat stigma around menstruation in India

India’s GDP would rise by $5.5 billion if 1 percent more girls were enrolled in secondary school. But according to The Pad Project, many girls drop out once they start their periods.

This issue struck a chord with alumna Melissa Berton, who founded The Pad Project with her students at Oakwood High School. The nonprofit raised money to install a sanitary pad machine in Kathikera, India. The manual apparatus is used to make pads, and is the inspiration for Berton’s Academy Award-nominated short documentary, “Period. End of Sentence.”

“We started with the idea that a period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education,” Berton said. “But this village was so removed that school wasn’t the issue; in this particular village, the main thing was women taking care of themselves for themselves and not feeling shame about a natural process.”

Berton and her students fundraised within their community and on Kickstarter, and eventually earned enough for a pad machine, a year’s worth of raw materials and the film’s funding. The film shows people’s preconceptions about periods, as well as the changes in the village six months later. By portraying the changes the nonprofit brought to Kathikera, Berton said she hopes to demonstrate the importance of destigmatizing menstruation and female empowerment.

The village women now own the pad machine and named their brand “Fly,” because they want to help other women feel like they can soar. She said the women want to expand their product into Delhi, and have made alterations to the original pad design to fit their own preferences, such as by adding wings. She said the women also determine the pricing, packaging and distribution strategy behind the product.

Buying pads can often be embarrassing for rural women, as they are often unaffordable and wrapped in incense. This leaves women to instead utilize old cloths made from rags or saris – traditional women’s dresses – she said. The people of Kathikera often think periods were an impurity or illness, Berton said, which in turn leads women to be barred from entering the temple while on their period.

Claire Silney, a student founder of The Pad Project, said they hope their efforts not only start conversations about periods, but also inspire people to contribute to the cause or to start their own passion project.

“We kind of had this realization that we wanted to address the issue in a larger way than just raising money for one single pad machine in one single village,” Silney said. “People who had no idea this was an issue are now watching (the film) and understanding that it is an issue.”

Engaging in conversations about the subject has created a shift in the village culture and even in U.S. culture – Americans have started to openly and shamelessly talk about periods, director Rayka Zehtabchi said. Zehtabchi visited the village twice during the filming process, and said the women who lived there originally had little knowledge regarding their periods. They were fascinated with the filmmaking process, but during interviews, she said they were often unwilling and uncomfortable to talk about periods, which were perceived as taboo in a way. The few people who responded relayed misinformation about menstruation.

“The women were rather Machiavellian in a sense; in order to install the machine, they actually told the men they were installing a Huggies machine,” Zehtabchi said. “(Six months later) they were grabbing our hands and pulling us into the machine room and teaching us how to make a pad.”

During Zehtabchi’s second trip to India, six months after her first, she found a shift in the attitude of the men and women alike. Because making the pads provided women with jobs, they felt more empowered as they could contribute financially to their families, she said. In the documentary, one of the women shares that she used her earnings to buy her brother a suit – the moment was special because in her experience, it is usually brothers who buy their sisters gifts.

Since the film’s release in April, Silney said The Pad Project has installed a second pad machine in a neighboring village, Sudhena, and plans to install more in other countries. Silney said the women rely less on their husbands and can now help support their families; members of The Pad Project do not want to invalidate cultures, but instead tailor their assistance to fit into the existing traditions, she said. Closer to home, she said The Pad Project hopes to address the stigma in the United States and provide better access to menstrual hygiene products to women in homeless shelters, women’s centers, prisons and areas of natural disasters.

“I think that moving forward, (we’re) also focusing on our own local communities and noticing the fact that the stigma surrounding menstruation and lack of access to menstrual products is not just an issue in developing countries halfway across the world,” Silney said.