Racism and Medicine 101 has been very important class for me this semester. Having been raised in a place where my classmates all had similar upbringings and backgrounds, in the suburbs of Buffalo, this class was very enlightening. I remember coming to this class in the beginning of the semester and questioning if there was any correlation between race and medicine, but now it is inevitable that I relate one to the other. Using concrete evidence, through Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid, and more abstract texts, like Percival Everett’s Zulus, I learned about Racism in Medicine and furthered my knowledge substancially. Continue reading “Growth”
Mixed Messages or One Clear Message?
The article Professor McCoy presented to us, An Unconscious Patient with a DNR Tattoo definitely caught my attention. I first read about the issue when it was highlighted on Twitter over this past weekend, and it has been floating around my mind ever since.
Dystopian Religion
As we read dystopian novels dredged in death or oppressive government regimes, religion is brought up. Because of the mass amounts of death and negativity found in an apocalyptic world, we are not only faced with the question of will humanity survive, but will religion survive? I know there are probably more important things to worry about during an apocalypse like, “Will I be able to find food today?” or “How will I cross the street without being attacked by zombies?”, but survival isn’t only about staying physically safe, there is also the preservation of the mind that contributes to survival. In Zulus and Zone One, religion is discussed in different ways. Continue reading “Dystopian Religion”
Technological Determinism in English Class
As a Teaching Assistant for the communication course at Geneseo titled “Mass Media and Society”, it is my job to take the work that we are doing that week in class and apply it my life and the lives of the students in the class, and particularly our lives as millennials and what matters to us and create a fifteen-minute discussion section each Thursday. Last week, our focus on class was on technological determinism. This is the idea that technology plays a big role on us and the way that we live, learn, and grow. It shapes our society and the way that we come to conclusions. For this week’s discussion section, I wanted to focus on the question: what goes away when our technology goes away? Continue reading “Technological Determinism in English Class”
Food in Fiction
I’ve found a connection between Clay’s Ark, Zulus, and Zone One: food. In all of these novels, humans have to deal with alternatives to the plethora of foods we have available in any modern supermarket or grocery store. In Zulus, the planet is dying and cannot support the same amount of life as it used to, because of this, humans gain nourishment from a diet of cheese and crackers. Fresh fruit is a coveted item brought in from rebel camps outside city limits, “Alice Achitophel sat down with a cup of tea, cheese and crackers, and this evening an apple bought from a rebel in an alley downtown,” (Everett page 17). The only places to purchase fruit are in back alleyways and underground rebel gatherings. Clay’s Ark, showed the availability of food through the surprise of Blake when he enters the enclave. He is at first surprised to see a functioning farm. “Blake suspected this was the first meal he had eaten that contained almost nothing from boxes, bags, or cans.” (Butler page 482) This hints that farm-grown livestock and produce are lacking in availability, which could also be a nod toward the prominence of processed food in our daily diets. Yet Eli’s observation leads me to think differently. “He went to the well, turned the faucet handle of the storage tank, caught the cold, sweet, clear, water in his hand, and drank. He had not tasted such water in years.” (469) through this I inferred the availability of fresh, clean water (such as well water) is also lacking. Zone One displayed a more prominent lack of food, causing dystopian humans to ease their hunger with a nutritional paste, “He burped up some of that morning’s breakfast paste, which had been concocted, according to the minuscule promises on the side of the tube, to replicate a nutritionist’s concept of how mama’s flapjacks topped with fresh blueberries tasted.” (Whitehead page 12)
A cheese-only diet and nutritional food-paste may seem far fetched but some real-life alternatives to food are just as shocking. Around Lake Victoria in Africa, there is an abundance of flies or midges, as a way to take advantage of this influx, villagers use them to make fly burgers. These high protein burgers help battle protein insufficient diets and offer more accessible ingredients. A man-made product having enough vitamins and nutrients to supplement a meal is Soylent. Soylent, produced by Rosa Foods uses soy-protein, sunflower oil, and flavor specific ingredients, to produce a nutritional supplement which is available in a liquid or powder form. Soylent also has a year-long shelf life and doesn’t require refrigeration, helping reduce food waste. While these are specific examples, supplements for food can be found in more normalized forms like nutritional and protein shakes, we see them in our nutritional supplement areas of our local supermarkets and vitamin stores. Zone One seems odd because meals are super-concentrated, we’re used to drinking our meal supplements; just think how much more we could accomplish in a day if we could just swallow a pill and didn’t have to set time aside to eat and enjoy our food or dining experiences.
Do Not Resuscitate
Today in class Professor McCoy shared an article about an unconscious patient with a do not resuscitate tattoo across his chest. In the article a man showed up to the emergency room with a number of health problems and an interesting tattoo of “Do Not Resuscitate” with his signature below. The attending medical staff was torn on how to handle the situation. In the beginning they continued to give him care, “invoking the principle of not choosing an irreversible path when faced with uncertainty” (Med 2). They decided to call in an ethicist for advice and they ruled to favor the patients wishes. This article is a great example of the crosswalk between literature and medicine. It deals with language use and interpretation of language as well as the importance of language in a medical setting. This issue also touches on the idea of consent which we particularly covered in Fortune’s Bones, Clay’s Ark, Medical Apartheid and Home. Continue reading “Do Not Resuscitate”
Consent: Does “Yes” Really Mean “Yes”?
Upon reading “An Unconscious Patient with a DNR Tattoo” from the New England Journal of Medicine, I was very perplexed by their decision to not resuscitate the patient based on the tattoo. We have learned in Home that one’s presence lives on long after they have passed for multiple reasons. This man who had the tattoo probably had a family or friends who knew him and would’ve rather had him alive. He probably had made connections to people throughout his life that left a lasting impression; and this impression may continue to live long past his death. Because of this, those people may have been upset that the hospital chose not to resuscitate him based on a tattoo.
The American Phoenix: A Follow-Up
Last week I published a blog post comparing the phoenix to the bald eagle. As a recap, I discussed the adoption of the phoenix as the national bird in Zone One by Colson Whitehead. The United States now even refers to itself as the American Phoenix, and sells merchandise depicting the mythical creature in order to foster cohesion among the survivors, while giving them a sense of optimism. They even refer to the bird as the “pheenie” (Whitehead 99), as they become friendlier with the concept. Later in my post, I compared mortalities of the birds–the bald eagle is said to lead a long life, while the phoenix lives for hundreds of years, dies in a burst of flames, and is reborn from the ashes.
An Unattainable Search For Consent
Coming to what will soon be the conclusion of this class, I want to revisit an issue that I touched upon previously in three other blog posts regarding my family’s possession of a human skull and how this class has impacted our view of this possession. Throughout this semester my understanding of consent has evolved and I have come to better understand how critical it can be in a medical setting. This understanding of consent was enhanced after learning of the violations of it in the cases of Alice in Zulus, all of the many victims in Medical Apartheid, in the case of Fortune in Fortune’s Bones and of others we have discussed so far this year. This understanding has been something I have shared with my family from time to time and has led us to struggle with our possession of our skull. This is due to the fact that we don’t know if it was obtained with or without consent and in a prejudicial manner or not. As we have come to realize this issue doesn’t have a simple solution and may be something we struggle with so long as we posses the skull.
I have continued to relay what we have learned throughout this semester to my family and as a result, our conversations about our possession of the skull has definitely intensified. I can tell that I have changed my families view on the skull in that they now all express their concerns from time to time about how our skull might have been obtained in a prejudicial manner without consent of its original owner. This is especially true in the case of my Dad who I can tell struggles a bit more than any of us with the ambiguity of the skull given his long-standing history with it. He has brought it up unsolicited a few times in conversations between us and is something I wish I could help me resolve. This ambiguity is an issue for all of my family though and we all agree it’s bothersome at times. This issue was most recently brought up again in my house after my mother and I visited the African Burial Ground National Monument over Thanksgiving break and saw an example of some remains that showed signs of having been “spirited by night from the graveyard” (Washingtonp.121) by medical students for dissection. This experience really made what I had been telling them all semester real as it bothered both of parents and brother when they made this connection.
Reflection on the Problems with Medical Volunteerism
Over the past two classes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” has been an underlying topic of group discussions. From participating in group discussion I have come to realize how complicated medical volunteerism is, and how difficult and elaborate one has to be when attempting to solve some of the problems associated with it. One problem of medical voluntourism that I realized from today’s class discussion was that volunteer opportunities seem to be directed abroad rather than within the United States. Continue reading “Reflection on the Problems with Medical Volunteerism”