What I Learned From ENGL 101

If I am being honest I am the epitome of procrastination right now. I am frantically typing my blog posts but I can’t help but to reflect on how this course honestly changed my outlook on medicine. From a very young age I have always wanted to be a doctor. I absolutely idolized doctors, especially my childhood pediatrician. In all honestly I had no idea of any of the atrocities we learned about in Medical Apartheid had taken place. I remember in one of the first classes Max brought up the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment and a lot of my classmates nodded to acknowledge that they were also familiar with it. I had absolutely no idea what that was. It wasn’t until I started reading Medical Apartheid that I learned about the long list of wrongdoings that medical professionals had committed against minority groups, especially the African American community.

I would like to now discuss a few of the largest things that I have taken away from this course. First, the importance of the both/and. Almost every class Professor McCoy brings up “the both/and” and it’s relevance to whatever we are taking about in class that day. Harriet Washington was one of the best examples and using the both/and. If you want your argument to be legitimate you must acknowledge the other side of the argument and the facts surrounding it. If you spend an entire argument ignoring the counterargument you are invalidating yourself.

The second take away I have gotten from this class is the importance of educating about injustices. I am a prime example of someone who did not know about any of the injustices discussed in Medical Apartheid. When we started discussing potential solutions to medical voluntourism every group had stated in their collaborative paragraph that educating was the best way to do it. The only way to prevent something from happening is by educating on why it’s wrong. This also connects to both/and as I discussed earlier. In order to successfully educate someone you need to keep in mind the both/and. Another important thing to remember when you are trying to educate someone is to avoid talking down to them.

The third takeaway from this class is the ability to effectively collaborate. I have worked on many group projects before but they mostly consisted of one person doing most of the work and the other group members just mindlessly following. In most of these cases I was the member who took control of the group. Looking back, no-one was benefiting from that type of collaboration. I can confidently say that this class has taught me how to effectively collaborate. The key to a strong group is all about balance. You have to be able to contribute your ideas but also have to listen to your other group members so you can build off their ideas. Collaboration is key to being able to solve complex issues and will be useful in any career field.

Importance of Language in Consent

In our class we have spent a lot of time discussing and unpacking the idea of consent. We spent an entire class learning about the Institutional Review Board. Throughout the reading of Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid we saw many unfortunate examples of consent not being given. We even spent a large amount of time discussing consent with regards to medical voluntourism. Needless to say, consent has been an important aspect of the course. Another focus of the course has been the importance of language and word choice. These two, consent and the important of language, go hand in hand.

Words are powerful. They have the power to give somebody the permission to do something or in other cases to not give somebody the permission to do something. It is also crucial that the words used to obtain consent or that are being used to give consent are clear the other person. In section 37. of the FAQ of the Institutional Review Board it says” to ensure that the consent document, in its entirety, contains all the information required by 21 CFR 50.25 in language the subject can understand.”. The portion of this that says in language that can be understood is absolutely crucial. This is where word choice becomes extremely important. If you are trying to obtain consent you must communicate clearly what exactly is going to be done and to what extent. It is also important to note that consent needs to be obtained if the procedure changes from it’s plan. “Clinical investigators should be cautious when enrolling subjects who may not truly understand what they have agreed to do. (Section 40 FAQ of the IRB). In Medical Apartheid Harriet Washington dedicates a chapter called “The Erosion of Consent”. An interesting point that she makes is “Various ethicists who are experts in human medical experimentation, such as Jay Katz, M.D and George Annas, J.D., worry that the vague language of federal regulations governing human medical experimentation is being interpreted in a manner that minimizes protections. (Washington 397). This is yet another example of how word choice is absolutely vital when obtaining consent. Intelligent people manipulated innocent, vulnerable people with their words. In some cases these people did not even ask for the patient’s consent due to loopholes in federal laws. Again, these loop holes are due to the wording of a law. I now understand why Professor McCoy stresses the importance of appropriate word choice being able to defend why you chose a particular word.

GLOBE in the Real World

I have been working as a nursing assistant at United Health Services (UHS) Hospital for the past two years in the float pool.  This means I can work on any floor in the hospital. Last week, I went home to attend an annual unlicensed nursing assistant education class where I was reminded about the mission statement and values of UHS. While I was listening to the nurse educators talk about the mission statement, I noticed that it correlated with Geneseo Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education (GLOBE) and the college’s own mission statement. GLOBE was created to shape students into “socially responsible citizens” who are able to handle “twenty-first century problems… that are applicable throughout their lives” (GLOBE). Continue reading “GLOBE in the Real World”

Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun

Upon reading the follow-up article about Alabama and the hookworm crisis that Dr. McCoy emailed us, I started to think about our government and its structure in a new way. I find it very interesting that this information is not reaching major headlines. An entire county that’s plagued with an illness due to unsanitary conditions seems like something that should be broadcasted on the news station. I am intrigued by the fact that this information is not something widely known but I cannot say that I am surprised.

Flint, Michigan’s water crisis made headlines a year after the problem arouse. Some of those who were in charge of the project of changing the source of the water to flow through lead pipes were aware of the likelihood that this would be a problem. However, it was swept under the rug until it became such a health concern, that they had no other option but to pull it out and dust it off. And in case anyone was wondering, the lead pipes in Flint have not all been replaced, yet. Their citizens have been without clean water for three years now…

Issues like this remind me of the things that we have learned from Medical Apartheid. I was horrified by the things that we read in that book. The treatment that these African Americans received was not that hard to fathom because I have learned about other terrible discrimination and pain that they were forced to endure. However, I was astounded by the fact that I had never heard about any of this. You’d think that these things would be in textbook or classes that teach about ethics in science, but the only thing you hear about is the Tuskegee experiments. And when you learn about this, it’s often described in a way to make it sound like a little “hiccup” in America’s ethics. In reality, there’s so many more situations similar to this that society does not know about.

Our nation often refuses to accept when we are wrong and unethical. Dark secrets are often swept under the rug and only few ever find them, and when they do, they do not have the power to make the information spread. Our country tends to focus on blaming outsiders for everything. This article, Medical Apartheid, and this entire course has really made me question how much do I really know about this country and its mishaps; what are they hiding?

The Uncertainty of DNR Tattoos

After reading Dana’s post, I became much more interested in reading the article about DNR tattoos and how it raises concern and uncertainty in terms of consent. The line from Dana’s post that read “…this could potentially lead to a new definition of consent that goes beyond legal written documentation.  The consent that would be associated with tattoos on the body might be difficult to clearly define” really sparked my attention, because this is very true. How do you interpret something like this, that really isn’t a popular or understood concept.

Continue reading “The Uncertainty of DNR Tattoos”

Sterilization without Consent

Imagine living your whole life wanting children, only to be sterilized by the government without your consent, effectively destroying your ability to have children. This is the case for a large amount of people, mostly minorities. “Used as a means of controlling “undesirable” populations – immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill – federally-funded sterilization programs took place in 32 states throughout the 20th century” states Lisa Ko in her article. Although many of us would like to think that the practice of sterilization has ended, it still continues to be a prominent issue in the world.  Continue reading “Sterilization without Consent”

American Ignorance about under-developing countries

There are several misconceptions that Americans have toward people who live in under developing countries due to how American society portrays them. Those misconceptions allow Americans to imagine how they live and look like, which create certain suppositions that aren’t always positively true.

In most American classrooms, we are taught about gratitude which pertains to teaching student’s ‌social and ethical skills. As students get older, they begin to hear phrases such as, “Don’t waste your food, there are starving children in Africa” or “Be grateful that you have clothes on your back; there are people who don’t have any.” When children hear phrases as such, they may begin to form an image in their mind in thinking that ALL “poor people” are alike. This mentality forces Americans from a young age to place themselves on a high pedestal, overlooking the other countries that they assume don’t have the same benefits or resources, as them. Little do many know that the disadvantages of many underdeveloped countries have to do with certain cultural or historical reasons, whose in authority and how their economic system has been dealt with over the last century or so.

For example, according to Reasons behind Haiti’s Poverty by Karen Fragala Smith, “Haiti was the wealthiest colony in the New World and represented more than a quarter of France’s economy.” Yet, “After a Haitian slave revolt defeated the French army in 1801, the newly independent nation became the first country in the New World to abolish slavery.” From then on, Haiti’s economy went down hill during the 20th century, due to natural disasters, an epidemic of HIV, and environmental devastation. Therefore, “Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, but its culture and history are undeniably rich.” At one point America wasn’t doing so well either, if it wasn’t for the end World War II, and the reduction of taxes and spending, who knows how else we would have dealt with the Great Depression. To be merely proud of your country isn’t wrong because we all have the right to be patriotic about where we come from. Yet, to denigrate another country with its present situation is fairly wrong.

According to Most Americans think the U.S. is great, but fewer say it’s the greatest  written by Alec Tyson, “38% said the U.S. stood above all others, while 53% said it was one of the greatest nations and 8% thought some others were better than the U.S.” Most Americans happen to grow up having a nationalistic mentality towards their country with what they are told to be proud of, just as any country is with their resources and benefits. As to 10 Reasons Why You Should Be Proud To Be An American by Lauren Fulte, a couple of reasons that we should be proud to be American are freedom, opportunity, unity and diversity. In reality those reasons are all opinion based and can be viewed differently by others who live in “underdeveloped countries.” Although these characteristics may generally seem true, in several cases, it may not be true. For example, diversity may exist in the United States but racism still exists in that all races aren’t accepted in all neighborhoods. Diversity is viewed differently and exists across the globe, so we shouldn’t take one aspect that we have and say that we’re better than the rest of the under developing world.

The first place that comes to mind when most Americans think of the under developing world is Africa. Usually that is because on national television, we watch commercials that ask for donations to send to Africa and constantly seeing that gives you an exclusive image of what Africa is like if you haven’t been there.

The way that the media and society portrays other countries alongside their own ends up causing a backfire effect for many principles that are placed about our country. The United States is considered to be, “a North American nation that is the world’s most dominant economic and military power” according to U.S. News.Yet if you do research about our country being in debt, where our resources come from and how we deal with other worldly causes, you wouldn’t say that our country is the best for a fact, in any aspect.

Many misconceptions that people have about underdeveloped countries are that all of the people are dying of starvation, they all live in rural areas or that the reason for poverty in certain areas are because of bad decisions that they’ve made. These myths and misconceptions reveal the lack of knowledge people have about countries other than their own. Once they do their research on the on those countries, they’ll realize that the information that they had before was ‌wrong.

Therefore, Americans shouldn’t make assumptions on how, and why the people who live in under developing countries live in the way that they do. Those stereotypes conquer many peoples perspectives toward underdeveloped countries, and so as to change that, research needs to be done, the media needs to change how they display those countries as a whole and society needs to be more aware of the actual causes of the issues going on across the globe. They shouldn’t simply send volunteers or donate food and water because eventually the good deed becomes temporary. Donating water, food, clothes and other resourceful products to those countries does a great deed, but once those resources finish, people will eventually need to find a way to get those resources alone.

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Anne Isabelle

 

Parallels in the Discard of Bodies in Zone One and NYC’s Past

Gary’s lasso was sadly not the only parallel in the mishandling of bodies that I noticed between the treatment of slaves and stragglers while at the African Burial Ground National Monument. Another bothersome similarity that I noticed while on my trip was the methodology of disposing bodies in Zone One and how it resembled practices enslaved people had to similarly endure in NYC’s past. These abusive methods were a bit more noticeably wrong originally but really came to light when you realized their historic context. Going to the museum and understanding the these abuses has definitely helped me to better understand the scope of them in Zone One and in my cities past.

Continue reading “Parallels in the Discard of Bodies in Zone One and NYC’s Past”

The Ninth Amendment

The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution addresses rights, retained by the people, that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. It is part of the Bill of Rights. In other words, the ninth amendment is also known as the “silent amendment” due to the fact that it is rarely acknowledged by the supreme court. The ninth amendment bears directly on things like abortion, the right to die, gay rights, and privacy. The founding fathers did not believe that they were creating these liberties in the Bill of Rights, instead they were acknowledging the rights that no government could deny. The ninth amendment also deals with privacy. Basically, this amendment protects one’s natural born rights that no one can take away from them. Natural rights are rights that people supposedly have under natural law. The Declaration of Independence of the United States lists life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as natural rights. I believe that this amendment is extremely important to society because it aids to our freedom and helps to better the nation as a whole.

This connects to the book Zulus by Pervical Everett. Although Zulus was set in a dystopian society, the people of the community were stripped of this amendment. All members of this society were required to be sterilized. The only person who was not was the protagonist, Alice Achitophel. However, Alice still managed to be violated of her basic human right of consent. Alice was raped by a mysterious man and when she was, she became pregnant. The mood of the entire community shifted when they decided that they wanted to take the baby away from Alice. This backfired due to the fact that Alice was never actually pregnant with a child after all. Alice ran off and essentially killed the entire society as a result of the violation of her basic rights. It is important to respect the rights of other humans as it can cause mass hysteria.