MedEx Day 26 - June 21, 2022

To start today, Dr. Carmela Epright spoke about ethics. Her topic was on mental illness and mass shootings. Dr. Epright hypothesized that most mass shooters are not mentally ill, as defined by the law. According to Dr. Epright, most mass shooters know what they are doing and are in control of their own actions. Although they may have morals that do not line up with most of reality, in her opinion, they cannot be not guilty because of insanity. Dr. Epright also discussed the general state of mental health care in the USA. The USA is short in staffing in all mental health disciplines and now has 5% of the beds for patients that we did in the 1960s. This statistic is very alarming to me, especially considering the rise in mental illnesses, especially with the pandemic. As a future provider, even if I am not a psychiatrist, I will have to be equipped to handle mental illness.

Later in the day, Tier IV got to visit the anatomy lab and look at/ hold different organs, muscles, and vessels within the abdominal cavity, especially within the thoracic cavity. I thoroughly enjoyed holding a human heart and also looking at different MRIs/ imaging tests which demonstrated various heart and lung diseases.