Today was the start of the second week of MedEx. To start the day we had a lecture about surgery by Dr. David Cone. Dr. Cone is a vascular surgeon who specializes in Vascular Access. Vascular Access is how the arteries and veins are opened up to allow dialysis to occur. Dr. Cone is an innovator in the field, as well, since he has pioneered many of the devices. This was extremely fascinating to me because I am very interested in Vascular Access. I am thinking about a career in this field or nephrology, as well as many other specialties. Dr. Cone's main advice was that we must learn to acknowledge our failures and embrace them in order to become better individuals and healthcare professionals. Afterwards, MedEx Tier I learned about our medical ethics project. This project is another group assignment in which we do research on a former medical case where there was or possibly was an ethics violation. My group was assigned the topic of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield published a later rescinded study declaring that the MMR vaccine could cause autism in children. Dr. Wakefield noticed that there was a correlation between someone receiving the vaccination and developing autism, however, correlation does not imply causation. I look forward to doing more research on Dr. Wakefield and preparing for my big presentation on August 1st. After the ethics assignment, MedEx Tiers I and III were thrown into a poverty simulation. Essentially the simulation details what it is like for those living under the poverty line by having participants take on roles of impoverished people. The simulation lasts for 4, 15 minute "weeks". The goal is to keep your situation the same or improve it. My scenario involved the Zuppot family. My family included Lauren, Mary, and LJ (left to right). Our family only had one person eligible to work, with two kids and a monthly income of $1846 with monthly expenses of $1500. This may sound like an okay situation, however, I learned how difficult it is to manage money/ time when there is simply not enough of either. By the end of the simulation, my kids had been taken by DSS, and I was evicted because we simply couldn't go to work, cash our check, pay the bills, buy food, etc. all in 15 minutes. It was very eye opening to me as I realized how impoverished people suffer. Next, a representative from Furman came to speak to us about college. After, Tier I was shown how to effectively use online resources to search for scientific journals, case studies, and research papers. It was amazing to see how much research has been done on almost everything, and it was crazy to think that all of that knowledge doubles every 73 days! To close the day we were shown how to better give presentations by using less words on slides. Great day!
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