Care For Someone Medically Care

Living is a gift. Many people in the world are simply alive, but living is rare. There are people that are too sick to enjoy life, the disease that has manifested in the body slowly takes over the mind and rids the mind of joy and radiance. The glow of life slowly diminishes before our eyes and it is truly heart breaking. This person is not just a disease that happens to be hosted in a human. This is a human that happens to have a disease. This person is someone’s parent, someone’s child, someone’s sibling, and someone’s grandparent. This person has memories, hobbies, and loved ones. This person is your patient. Making a difference in just one person’s life is an incredible feat. Being a physician assistant would be making a difference in many

In class, we learned that doctors are often very specialized and are only concerned about one specific part of a patient’s body. However, PAs are able to spend ample time communicating with patients and assessing their illness as a whole. Jessica Swartz said that she loves that she gets to take care of a patient throughout their entire hospital stay and is able to develop a trusting relationship with many of them. During lecture, Mrs. Hontz stated that many PAs in family practice are able to take care of their patients from birth to death, which allows them to form lasting relationships with them. I look forward to the many interactions that I will have as a PA, which will hopefully show my patients how much I care about helping them feel their best.

Within this case study I am going to use two of the Chapelhow et al. (2005) enablers to discuss and reflect on the care of a patient I have been involved with on placement over a period of 5 weeks. ‘Enablers are the essential and underpinning skills that come together to provide expert professional practice’ (Chapelhow, C et al. 2005, p.2). These include; assessment, communication, documentation, risk, professional decision making and managing uncertainty. The enablers work together to provide a holistic approach to the care of patients in health care settings. I am going to focus on and discuss two of the enablers, linking them both together, which will be assessment and communication as I believe these two enablers can be related most to my patient.

This role does not only allow me to shadow doctors while they engage with patients, providing an opportunity to gain invaluable information and advises. This role requires most of my attention towards patients’ needs, which helps to establish a professional relationship and understand what they expect a doctor to be: caring and sensitive but decisive. As English is not my first language, my bilingual skills give me a chance to help some patients through being a translator. It is not the dream job anyone imagines, hours of sleepless shifts, tremendous responsibility with no room for errors as dealing with fragile lives and not products. This only further strengthens my decision to pursue medicine. What I most admire is how empathetic a doctor can be yet unaffected during a critical situation. It is more than just a skill; it is a talent.

For as long as I could remember, I have seen my father rushing to the hospital in a white coat, answering pagers in the middle of important family conversations and attending night calls even in the most terrible weather. I had always wondered; what could be so important that it belittles every other responsibility in his life. It was only after many years of anguish and protests that it finally made sense to me. This defining moment of realization occurred when I first met a patient in his office. I saw how the gratitude in the patient’s eyes can provide a sense of fulfillment that triumphs all other feelings in the universe. It was human life that was most important. Being a doctor does not make you a mere healer but also gives you the responsibility of a caregiver. I had never felt more proud of my father and that was the day I felt the urge to relive this feeling many times over. It was there in that moment that I decided to pursue a career in medicine.

The service day on April 5th, really gave me a precious opportunity to have access to the life and health of immigrant persons from South America and their priorities in life as well as their consideration about health. This is my first time to help so many immigrant persons from South America check their blood pressure, height and body weight, and give them information about how to have access to free clinical and blood pressure control as well as weight management. I really thank Professor Raja, because it was she who gave us this precious experience to do service for and know this special population in USA.

When asked what trait a physician bears in the 21st century, most would agree with compassion. Pierre Elias author of the narrative essay, “Insensible Losses: When The Medical Community Forgets The Family”, argues that physicians may be compassionate when it comes to their patients, but “lack a systematic approach to communicating with families when a patient’s health deteriorates unexpectedly, requiring a change in care providers” (Elias 707). Pierre Elias is a medical student from Duke University. He is nearing the end of his clinical rotations when he is forced by his inner moral conscience to deliver difficult news to a patient’s family whom no other physician makes time for.

These questions would be easier to answer if physicians were not citizens of any state, but only healers and nothing more. But this sentiment is naïve and only feasible in an idealistic world. However, we don’t live in a perfect world, instead we live in a world confined by borders, marred by terrorism and imbued with nationalism and statist

- When you think of a doctor, what comes to mind? Someone who does everything in their power to save lives might be one of the thoughts. But what if the patients’ of these doctors death is incurable, and no medical involvement can change that fact, than what becomes the role of a doctor?

Every culture has its own way of dealing with sickness and illness. Growing up both in Angola and the United States, a person is able to reflect on cultures and their own myths as well as beliefs. These cultures are very different from one another in respect to their outlook on illness and hospitalization. Being Angolan in the American healthcare industry, they experience many different attitudes about how to best treat medical illness. During the time of sick or for curing disease in Angola, the people would rather see their traditional healer than a doctor for such things as; fever, stomachache, bad dreams, pain, or mental disorders. They don’t have access to the same kind of healthcare services as the Americans do. Only a few people can afford good medical care and unfortunately many have a life expectancy that is below fifty years of age mostly related to poverty related diseases such as; tuberculosis, malaria, and measles.

A physician must be well rounded in a variety of fields to provide effective care. First, an interest in learning scientific knowledge must be accompanied by the ability to translate that knowledge into methods of treatment. Because science is constantly changing and improving, a physician should be continuously expanding their scientific learning within and outside of their respective fields. Most of the coursework that I have taken reflects my interest in the intersection between biomedical science and its applications through an anthropological lens. For example, I have performed public

Beginning on the first of January next year, this trip to the Dominican Republic will last thirteen days and will consist of long, hardworking, days of providing health care to more than 2,000 patients from fifteen rural villages. These many patient interactions occur in makeshift clinics, created in rural homes, schools and churches, which we will spend time building and breaking down each day of our trip. In regards to building and preparing each clinic site, each person on the trip will be responsible for various supplies and medications germane to their assigned health care team; each day, we will be responsible for bringing our supplies, which will be inventoried and organized each night, to our next clinic. During the program, we, as student nurses, will be lead by faculty members from the University of Southern Maine College

Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care, the words of Theodore Roosevelt written in the radiology department at Good Samaritan Hospital, where I work as a Radiologic technologist. These words are a constant reminder of why I choose to pursue a career in medicine. Growing up in Haiti, I was an underweight, mal nourished child with a weak immune system. Sick days seemed to occur every other day. In a country with limited resources, I remember traveling with my parents to different towns in search for medicine and the right physician. We would walked miles, but no miles was ever long enough to stop my parents from getting their son the proper treatment. At a young age my parents showed me the true meaning of altruism and empathy, necessary skills needed to make a great physician. Living in poverty can have major consequences on one’s health. I witness this in my own health and those surrounding me. To survive these harsh conditions, as a community we had to stick together, we had to care for one another. We shared everything with our neighbors, from clean drinking water, food supplies, to natural herb treatment and medicine. From observing the change in lives in the community when treatment was provided, I quickly learned to values the benefits of good Health and medicine.

Recently on a trip to Cuba I gained a valuable learning experience about their culture and lifestyle. The citizens of Cuba receive free education and healthcare. However, their field of study is decided for them, as well as, their medical choices. It is believed that the physicians carry the primary responsibility for the community. They are called

Medical anthropology looks at health across all culture and how health is affected by culture. This is a different perspective then what medical practitioners are trained in medical school, which is they are focusing on looking for the disease and treating it. When it comes to a person’s health and treatment it is hard for a medical practitioner to consider all of the possibility that could play role in a person’s illness and/or disease. The medical practitioner does their best to find the disease and treat it as fast as possible (due to the volumes of patients that they have to see), but that is not always the best thing for them to do. There are other factors that could play an important role in the patient’s illness and/or disease and that the medical practitioner should take time to listen and talking to the patients to get the full story. In this paper, I will talk about the importance of culture in understanding health, the “cultural competency”, and others factors that influence health.