Day 17: Lots Learned

Happy Tuesday! Jenny Co started out our day by talking to us about Implicit Bias. I had some prior knowledge in regards to this topic due to a class I took last year. It is called “Theory of Knowledge”, it is about critical thinking and inquiries about the process of knowing. Jenny led us through a test that helped determine our gender and race biases that we may not be very aware of. When I took the test the first time during my class, it made it clear to me that I associated males with career and females with family. However, when I retook the test today I had no automatic preference. This proves just how significant it is to be knowledgeable of those implicit biases one may have in order to better see the reality of things. Those biases are frequently seen in the field of healthcare where healthcare providers unconsciously prefer certain patients over another which plays a huge role on the patients likelihood of treatment or even survival at times. Following Jenny’s lecture, Mr. Squire presented us with an extremely difficult case that required a lot of ethical thinking. We were introduced to six patients who were on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. This was tremendously challenging because each patient had their own personal aspect(s) that in my opining made it necessary for them to get the kidney. This activity helped me realize how arduous it actually is to make a decision on organ transplants. The people who get to make those decisions require ethical thinking strategies and they must also be able to use those strategies very quickly and efficiently while the organ is still available. They then not only deliver the good news to the patient who is decided upon to receive the organ but they also must deliver the unpleasant news to the patients and families of the patients who will not be receiving such organ; it’s not very easy to let people know that a decision you have made may very well result in their deaths.

Tier III then joined us for the final prep for our Cradle-to-Grave projects. Everyone’s projects was really coming together at this point and my group and I had a clear idea of how we want to go about presenting. I was really proud of how our model was turning out and our one thing left to do was to put together the final presentation with all of our research and information.

During lunch, there was an awesome lady that came and talked to us about Patient Tech/ Monitor Tech Positions and then Mrs. Jennifer Snow who talked to us about Health Administration. I was always curious as to what I could be doing to gain experience and this lecture came in the perfect time. It enlightened me with the many things that I can do in the hospital that would expose me to more patient contact.

Jenny Co then took some time to go over the differences of the professional programs in healthcare. This caused some confusion to many of us at first as we kept confusing MD and DO. Jenny however, made sure to make them clear to us before we moved on. She described that a DO is an osteopathic physician, while an MD is a medical doctor, an allopathic physician.

Our MedEx day ended with a lecture about Nurse Practitioners presented by Mrs. Stephanie King. She did an amazing job busting NP myths and going over many aspects of her job that many of us were not aware of. I found Mrs. King‘s journey to be very fascinating and inspiring. If there is one thing I am glad I learned from today, it is to “choose joy in everything I do” as Mrs. King said she does and advises for us to do as well. She explained that “‘happiness’ is situation based while ‘joy’ is a choice.” My peers and I loved exploring the Nurse Practitioner Career and also getting to know Mrs. Stephanie King.