HW 33: Comments Four

For Omar:   Your most beautiful line was, " I always thought of the doctor and medicine and the healthcare system in general as something that was obviously corrupted but could be effective if it was actually for the benefit of people." This is very interesting to me why did you think the healthcare system was corrupt before? How did you know was it personal experience, or did a friend or family member inform you. Had it not been for this unit I probably wouldn't have even known this until my adult years. Overall nicely done Omar way to be concise.


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From Omar:  Didn't post on my blog.

From Stephen( Younger Person)  For Abdul, Your most beautiful line was"Now this doesn't mean you should try and die or kill yourself, it just means if death is the only outcome or your odds are that slim be grateful for the time you had on Earth and get ready to have all your questions about the afterlife answered." This is a really smart line, people should definitely be grateful for what they receive and the memories and events they have before it's to late. It's also probably true when you die that all your answers about the afterlife are answered. Good job Abdul on your blogpost keep up the goodwork.


From Ms.D:  I agree with Stephen, I was also struck by your idea that we can look forward to having our "questions about the afterlife answered." In a way, though, they'll only be answered if we are in some way conscious. For example if we're in heaven, or even hell, then we'll know what happened to us. But if our soul/spirit/mind/consciousness or whatever you want to call it simply ends when our heart stops beating, then are our questions answered? The answer will be there, but we won't be around to know it... And then that brings up reincarnation- if it exists, does the soul know that it will be reincarnated? Does it have any choice in how and into which body? I'm thinking all of this because I just finished a World Religions unit and it seems that one of the driving forces behind religions is the answers they provide people about the afterlife. As afraid as some people, especially many Christians, are of hell, people seem even more terrified of the idea that there is simply nothing after death, and religion can provide an antidote to that terror. They've done studies showing that prayer doesn't help people recover from illness (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html) but at the same time it does seem that people with strong religious faith who believe that they have earned a pleasant afterlife are less afraid of death, both for themselves and their loved ones. Has religion come up for you in this unit? It seems inextricably linked to most people's experiences with death...
In my last post I asked what alternate health care system you would prefer to the one that we have in the U.S., and you started to answer that in this post, which I appreciated. The socialist health care model has more issues and problems than were presented in Sicko, but also has some distinct advantages over our system. 
In general it seems that you've been thoughtful about the material covered in this unit and I look forward to your thoughts on birth...

Homework #32: Thought Following Illness and Dying Unit

    This unit was more enlightening than I thought it would be. At first I was spectacle about the unit, but that was only because of the name illness and dying. I thought to myself what could Andy possibly have to teach us about this, there's no way this can be as interesting and beneficial to my life as the food unit. I guess I was wrong. My only experiences with terminal illness and dying have come from family related deaths. I was able to watch and experience my grandmother die from lung cancer, it was quite a sight. I'd rather not see anyone else go through that again. My uncle died of aids in 2002 and I saw him about 3 months before he died, he looked extremely healthy but he still died and had a close casket.  This prepared me for the subject we were about to tackle in school.  Apparently there is a nightmarish industrial atrocity in most of our dominant social practices, and this is one of them. Because of the health care system America has those who need the insurance are often denied due to profit incentives that date back to the Nixon presidency.  The movie Sicko, as long as the movie Food Inc seemed to be the light at the end of my tunnel. The movie Sicko provided that alternative to the problems we have socialized medicine. Looking at the facts and statistics provided in Sicko, and Mr. Harker's blog it would be more beneficial if we switched to socialized medicine. But of course the Republicans and others wouldn't have this at all.
     This unit did have some more bright sides, it made me feel as if I should enjoy life more.  The key to dealing with death to me is to welcome it. Now this doesn't mean you should try and die or kill yourself, it just means if death is the only outcome or your odds are that slim be grateful for the time you had on Earth and get ready to have all your questions about the afterlife answered. That especially sounds very promising.  However, if I were to die at this moment I wouldn't be satisfied with my life. I still have so many places to see, things to do, people to meet, women to meet especially, and things to accomplish.
     Now with hospitals I feel I am quite biased since I take for granted my health insurance that my mom's job provided for us for free.  My doctor visits are always pleasant, my doctor Dr. Vharma is a nice woman who doesn't seem to not have a personal relationship with her patients. I love the doctor so much I look forward to going there, being weighed, seeing how much I grew, beating the eye tests with my stellar vision as the doctor calls it, even when I'm sick/ have the flu I look forward to going there since I know my doctor has got me covered, and the only bad thing I can think of when going to the doctor is getting shot to help prevent diseases and other things which I get for free.  But enough with me, everyone isn't that lucky I understand this our healthcare system wastes way to much money trying to keep patients alive who are most likely going to die, rather than helping keep people alive for diseases which there are cures for.  Our country has got some adjusting to do hopefully after this recession is over(if it ever ends) our country and re-establish itself and fix things. But, like they say on the news with time comes change.

HW #31: Comments Three

     For Omar:  Your most beautiful line was, " We are focused on fixing the problem after it has happened rather then trying to prevent the problem from happening in the first place." I personally believe this is so true, our healthcare system focuses way to much on "fixing" ( which I don't really see) the problem. If we hadn't set the healthcare system to be about profit in the first place we probably wouldn't be in the predicament that we're in now. I feel like as Americans we have this weird proud ego about our country and things that we have, we really shouldn't though it turns out not only does a our food system suck, but so does our healthcare. I'm very curious to learn what else are we doing bad in compared to other countries, besides education of course.
    
    For Ben( Presentation Comment #1): For Ben, Your most beautiful line was " Overall though, the National Health Service in Britain is a much more effective and honorable system than whatever system we practice in America, and the idea of socialized health care is benefiting a much larger portion of England then the percentage of people in America that benefit from health care, which might have something to do with the fact that about 50 million people in America are not covered by heatlh insurance at all."  Your presentation really made me want to examine and check out your blog. I wanted to check out some of your sources that you used for the NHS, and see how America measured up to them. You did a really god job of explaining both the negatives and the positives briefly in your presentation, which really made me want to read in depth more about this in your post later. Overall good job, and very interesting post.


     For Abdullah ( Presentation #2)"The dominant social practice concerning the passing away of someone who has no chance of survival is to get admitted to a hospital and spend the rest of their life connected to machines that will prolong their life by a few months." This is a very intelligent statement. Do you think the dominant social practice regarding patients should be different and if so why?  I would probably rather live a little longer even if I'm on machines. Overall good work though.Your presentation really made me curious it wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be, which made me want to view your blog more. It was probably just the pressure of trying to sound smart, and the pressure of talking in front of peers. Your was still better than mine though.
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 From Omar: My favorite line was: "this system is flawed because the incentives for the HMOs are all about maximizing profit which can't happen if they pay for everyones healthcare. The less money they spend on procedures in general no matter how important they may be the better it is for them." To me this is the most important part when it comes to paying for healthcare. The incentives of HMO's go directly against the need of people seeking medical care. This obviously leads to some clash between the two. I think you did a very good job of showing this. In addition, by using your uncle to show how truly inhumane the healthcare system can be you gave the post not only factual evidence but a personal reality to open up the eyes of people who aren't really aware of these situations. Well done.


 From Stephen( Younger Person):  Your most beautiful line was" One can also observe patterns between people in America who live in poverty and people who don't have healthcare.13.2 percent of people in America are living in poverty, 15.4 percent of Americans don’t have healthcare, enough said. " This is really smart, right here a lot of people are straight up poor, and a lot of people don't have healthcare. That really makes sense, but it's also messed up at the same time. Everybody should get healthcare even the poor people they just shouldn't get as good of healthcare, or maybe they should have to wait in long lines. I don't even have healthcare but it's a tough world out here, you could just leave the country or you could just stay safe and watch yourself.


From Ms.D: Abdul, this was a powerful post. I was sorry to read about your uncle. I agree with Omar that by sharing a personal story you humanized the issue for readers who may not have that kind of experience with the health care system. if you stop by my classroom, I have a book that your mother might like. 
On another note, you wrote, "I think that there definitely needs to be major changes for our healthcare system to be anywhere close to that of France, and Canada." I'd like to know specifically which types of changes you'd like to see. What do you think of the health care reform that Obama pushed through (and of Republicans' efforts to repeal it)? Realizing that change is necessary is the first step, calling for change is the next, but offering proposals and alternatives, or at least knowing which ones to support, is necessary to move forward. The health care reform legislation is long and detailed and supposedly difficult to understand, but if you focus on one issue that pertains to you then you could assess the legislation through that lens. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Or, if you are now done with this unit on health, then moving forward as you learn about things that you'd like to see changed in our society, I'd like to hear specifically HOW you'd like them to be changed.

Illness and Dying Culminating Experimental Project

Illness and dying are two key concepts things that most people take for granted. Some people think that you waltz into the hospital, and you either get better or die. This is actually mostly true assuming that you have healthcare to even get the chance to get better. It turns out that  there are many different factors to illness and dying. The factor that I am choosing to explore for my final project is paying for healthcare.

This partcular aspect of illness and dying relates to two of the sources from the unit,  Sick, by Jonathon Cohn, and Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko. Both of these sources explain how caring for the ill  is usually paid for.  In America, most people have healthcare, even though a lot of people still don't receive the care they are paying for.  We have a capitalist health care system. Healthcare is provided to the people through their employers.  The companies that issue healthcare are called HMOs and they approve or deny certain treatments. From what I've seen/heard they try and deny treatments more to save money. What this means is that the HMOs can decide if they want to pay for operations. As we learned from Sicko, this system is flawed because the incentives for the HMOs are all about maximizing profit which can't happen if they pay for everyones healthcare. The less money they spend on procedures in general no matter how important they may be the better it is for them. People that deny healthcare to patients usually receive a raise of some sort.

One extremely interesting fact from the movie Sicko was when a man had the inhumane choice of choosing between $12,000 to reattach his ring finger or $60,000 to reattach his middle finger. This was because his healthcare provider wouldn't pay for them both, leaving him with this difficult decision that so many people are forced to make.

To extend my knowledge about healthcare coverage I researched the percentage of people that have healthcare. The Daily News reported that the Census Bereau discovered there were 46.3 million Americans without health insurance in 2009. There are also 15.4 percent people in America living without health insurance, 13.2 percent of these people are living in poverty. This is goes together because the leading cause of bankruptcy in America is healthcare debt.

Now for bringing these ideas into the real world  I wanted to interview somebody that knew somone that didn't have healthcare and how that affected both of the people.This certaintly wasn't hard to find especially in America. I asked my mom if she could ask one of her employees at work if any of them has been affected  by these costs. Then she began to cry. I was extremely shocked and didn't know what I could have said or done to offend her, I slowly began to walk away when she said to me " you remember my brother michael right."  I felt awkward answering but I did and I answered yes. She said do you remember that he died of AIDS. He originally was HIV positive and didn't have full blown aids. But he didn't have healthcare so he wasn't able to get the treatment and prescriptions that people like Magic Johnson have which has kept him alive for so long eventhoughh he was diagnosed with the same thing as my uncle. My uncle lasted only 6 months. His HIV soon turned into full blown aids and there was nothing they could do for him.  My mom tried to help pay his medical expenses but they were just so expensive and she couldn't do it alone. When this happened in 2002 I was very young and had no idea what was going on, I didn't even know what healthcare was.  You can easily see how both people were affected in this my uncle died and my mom his sister was emotionally torn and left in debt trying to pay for her brothers healthcare.

    This experience that I probably would never have went through if it wasn't for this class basically taught me that things aren’t always what they appear to be especially in America which is why I picked this class. Life also isn't fair bad things happen to good and bad people life isn't biased or fair to anyone.  The good guys don't always win and the bad guys don't always lose.America's health care system isn't perfect but neither is anybody elses. I think that there definently needs to be major changes for our healthcare system to be anywhere close to that of France, and Canada.  One can also observe patterns between people in America who live in poverty and people who don't have healthcare.13.2 percent of people in America are living in poverty, 15.4 percent of Americans don’t have healthcare, enough said.

Sources
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/personal_finance/2009/09/10/2009-09-10_number_of_americans_without_health_insurance_rises_to_463m.html?page=0

HW 29 Reading and Noting Basic Materials

     Paying For Medical Care

In America, many people go into hospitals unsure if they will receive healthcare. In some countries like  France, Canada, and Britain they have something called socialized medicine unlike the U.S.A In the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore he basically states that 50 million Americans don't have health insurance. Sometimes people have to make really tough decisions about there health care, such as choosing between body parts would you rather have your arm or your left leg. However, there are families where this doesn't happen Ms. Bernett didn't have to pay anything for her husbands death, since they had insurance. Health insurance companies do go out of their way to make sure patients don't get their insurance even if they do have it.  Pre- existing conditions are something that companies look for before they give you the insurance you need.  This is basically because the incentives of the healthcare system are not to provide health care but to accumulate profit for the company. We have evidence of this because of President Richard Nixon's recordings with his chief advisor, who presented the proposal of the new health care system.  He told Nixon the idea of the new system and Nixon basically said " that doesn't sound to bad."  It is basically a fact to say the American health care system is corrupt and needs some fixing which may take a while.

     Facing Terminal Illness

For some odd reason when people in general are young we feel as though we are practically invincible This is definitely true for me  This is probably because we are either at our prime or almost at our prime in terms of health.  When you injure yourself or when you get sick/ the flu you feel vulnerable, making your sense of invincibility temporarily disappear. But our bodies usually conquers whatever hurt us in the first place, and through the magic of mitosis we get better.  If we get a terminal illness this is usually very different, I have never had one and never will hopefully so I'm talking based on the experience and information of others. It's hard for many to accept they may never recover or be the same from an illness, even when there body has recovered from hundreds or injuries. Some people ignore it, some try and fight it confident that they will prevail, and some just give up then we realize we are human and human doesn't equal invincible. 

When Beth Bernett our guest speaker came in to share her tragic story of her husbands death of cancer.  Before he was diagnosed with cancer, his appearance began to take a turn for the worst. Her husband Eric turned down the doctor many times, probably because he didn't want to admit something bad was happening to him, or he just may have wanted to try and leg it out and see if he recover naturally like he had done so many times.  Slowly he began to lose massive proportions of weight. He was eventually in such bad shape that he had to sleep bent over a table because of the overwhelming pain. Eventually he had no choice but to face the inevitable he was ill. This is an extremely hard thing to accept, even for me someone who is very prideful of their recovery skills. 

Being Sick

Every single human being on this planet has been sick at least once with the exception of maybe newborn babies.  After speaking to my mom about being sick she told me when she is sick no matter what the condition is she immediately tries to seek help and defeat it. This is basically similar to what I do. When we are sick we don't believe in taking days for school or work. We still feel we should be able to do what we do in life while recovering from a cold/flu or whatever we may have. There is the whole idea of separating ourselves from people to prevent infection though.  

When I'm sick/ have the flu I always find myself daydreaming about what it feels like to be "normal". How was it like to breathe with ease? When I'm sick is when I truly realize how amazing it feels to be healthy. When I go to the doctor for my yearly checkups I go there with a lot of confidence that the doctor will find me perfectly  healthy. I awaited my results actually quite nervous hoping that I grew and gained weight and am perfectly healthy. Then they came my palms began sweating which is a sign of stress she said something like " Abdul you are 5'6'',150 pounds, and you have 20/15 vision which is amazing you are a perfectly healthy boy."  That made my day completely I felt like I was the s**t. If that day had gone the opposite since it's pretty much like that every time I go to the doctor, except for the 20/15 part which was a shocker.

HW 28: Comments

 For Omar: Your most beautiful line was your last paragraph when you said "  not respect in the sense of being polite but respect in the sense of being treated as if they were a human being and as if their life was of value, because after all these are both true." This seems very true they still treat the people with the same politeness however, as a human being and the value of their life is a different story.  This is something that most people myself included to other people in life. I think this is beautifully written, as so true.  People probably do this sub-consciencely, I sure do think so. Is there a way to fix this now, I don't have the answer.
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From Omar: I think the best part of this HW was that you showed the actions of someone receiving sufficient medical care, which is a situation we hardly dealt with in this unit. It was interesting how you talked about people reactions to her even after she was out of the hospital and how she reacted to that. The lack of knowing how to act around the ill or recovering is still awkward regardless of the medical treatment they receive. Good job at focusing on a topic we went into little depth about. Maybe there is some relation between the patients behavior and their health for example if your cousin was still sick would they like to be babied or not, how would their wants change depending on their situation.



From Stephen:(Abdul's younger friend): Your best part about your paper was that you were able to make many observations while at the hospital. You were in a scary place and you were able to focus alot and pay attention to Marsha's behavor. You said " It made me very happy to be treated this way from doctors despite all that I've recently been learning in class, about doctors treating patients rather terribly". You were really paying attention to the nurses to make sure they would nice to your cousin good job.



From Ms.D: Coming Later Today She is a very busy woman please understand. I am helping her grade quizes on friday though.  I'm glad that your cousin made a full recovery and that she was surrounded by you and other relatives as she did. I agree with Omar that it's commendable that you focused on an instance of doctors providing good care if that issue has 'hardly been dealt with' in your class. Many doctors are compassionate and it's valuable that you brought that up since it's always more interesting to look at an issue like healthcare from various angles.
I was very interested by your theory about why your cousin received good care: "I thought because my cousins condition wasn't that bad the doctors had a easier time treating my cousin as a human being and not a patient." You mentioned that doctors may not want to get attached to very sick patients, and you are probably right. As you say, it might be easier for doctors to relate to another relatively healthy person, or at least to feel less life-or-death pressure. On the other hand some people go into the practice of medicine in order to deal with the very sick and may give more care and attention to very ill patients. For example I have a friend who works with HIV patients, and she generally spends more time and gives more thought to those who have AIDS and are dying than those who are simply HIV positive and come to the hospital for check ups and such. I imagine that how sick a patient is does impact how certain doctors treat him or her as you said; however, I think that while some doctors may treat healthier patients better, others may reserve their compassion for the sickest of all. It would be interesting if someone did a study on this! 
In some ways I can connect your theory to teaching. There's a saying that teachers teach best the students who learn as they did when they were students. I'm not sure whether that's true, but it is true that some teachers have more success and more enjoyment teaching students who grasp the material easily, and other teachers prefer working with students who really struggle. I wonder if the doctors who prefer working with very sick patients are ones who have experienced illness themselves, just as oftentimes SETSS teachers and those who enjoy working with struggling students overcame such learning issues themselves...

HW 27: Visiting an Unwell Person

     When my mother told me that a family relative was sick with food poisoning, I decided to visit her for Christmas. I had to take a bus to Baltimore, Maryland then take a cab to the hospital where she and other family members were.  The doctor told we shouldn't worry as my cousin is expected to make a full recovery after a week. She was only in the hospital resting and regaining strength to continue daily life. This was one of the most pleasant times I've ever had at the hospital, everyone was smiling and pretty much in a good mood. Even my cousin seemed to be content, though she was sleeping most of the time.
     My cousin soon recovered and left the hospital the next day, she was granted sick leave from work soon after. Since she didn't really have a serious ailment she was pretty cheerful. She basically acted normal, moved around, talked with the family, and she even played Nintendo Wii with me. One thing she didn't want was everyone particularly her mother Marsha to treat her as a sick patient. She didn't want to be "babied" or given special treatment from anyone, she basically wanted us to treat her as if nothing had happened. One hardship that my cousin did experience however, was that she couldn't eat or drink anything except for water. That is actually much more difficult than it sounds. There were however, many times about 4-5 where I did catch her sneak and eat macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, and Jello. Of course I didn't say anything to anyone. Marsha insisted that my cousin stay in bed and try not to be active around the house basically interpreting what the doctor originally which was "give her a week or so and she'll be fine" to " she won't be fine until the end of the week".
     Doctors and nurses in the hospital that my cousin was in were extremely nice and helpful. I'm sure they were also relieved they were able to care for a patient who wasn't terminally ill. Their was air-conditioning, an HD Flat screen t.v., and a bed that looked comfortable with many pillows.  I thought because my cousins condition wasn't that bad the doctors had a easier time treating my cousin as a human being and not a patient. Since she wasn't terribly ill or suffering to bad the doctors were able to see her as one of them a human being. I always though part of the reason doctors and nurses treated people as if they were only patients and not human beings is because they can't really relate to a ill/sick person lying in front of them, they just simply don't want to get attached to their patient in case they die, or they just may want to do their job and get paid to make a living,  The whole situation seemed similar to Mountains Beyond Mountains, because the medical staff seemed to have many of the qualities of the medical staff and even Paul Farmer from the book. They were very kind and considerate to my cousin and even us the family members who weren't ill/sick. It made me very happy to be treated this way from doctors despite all that I've recently been learning in class, about doctors treating patients rather terribly.