Reflection Paper

Carrie Fisher once proclaimed, “Stay afraid but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually, the confidence will follow.” I had to learn the hard way that confidence does not show up ready for you to utilize, just as the quote says. You have to put yourself out there and the confidence will develop. In the seventh grade, I joined the beginner band and chose to play the flute. Beginning band was far more terrifying than my twelve-year-old self imagined it to be. I learned that each student would have to perform in front of the class for a weekly grade. Even worse, the one other flute player next to me had already been playing for a year and I constantly compared myself to her. Later in that semester, this girl and I were talking and she said to me, “When we first started, I thought you were going to be the worst player in the band!” I was completely baffled that this girl, who had only been playing for a few more months than I had, would have the audacity to say that to my face. I did not understand that, at the time, it was okay for me to not play as well as she could. I had only been playing for a few weeks at most after all. Twelve year old me took it to heart and I felt like I was two inches tall. Sadly, that was not the last negative interaction I had with that girl. She stayed with me all throughout middle school, where she made fun of me for making last chair in eighth grade, and overall, put my

For the first seventeen years of my life my family was classified as being below the poverty line. We lived in a small farm town and I was homeschooled my entire life. Being socioeconomically challenged gave me a unique perspective on health care. My youngest brother was born with defects that resulted in profound loss of hearing. He needed hearing aids and speech therapy but Medicaid did not cover his hearing aids. The hearing aids were not covered and given that they cost over ten percent of my father's annual salary he was unable to receive them until a private donor stepped forward. Not having hearing aids at a crucial time in his language development, caused him to develop a speech impediment that made it difficult for him to communicate

My family household income was below the poverty level and we relied on housing assistance During many of my childhood years. I was 12 when my parents separated. My father lost his job and has not contributed financially to the family since. Based on my families experiences and my later service in a clinical setting within my community, I believe the communities in which I grew up were medically underserved. My success, despite the challenges resulting from my socioeconomic and familial background, is proof of my potential to succeed and survive hardships. I hope to use my experiences to inform my practice of medicine in underserved

About seven years ago, my family had to rush my grandpa multiple times to the hospital since his liver cancer kept acting up. Almost every time he had to wait outside of the hallway since the hospital was totally out of room. Even more ironic, we had to pay extra fees for his room to wait for the doctor's check up. While I was waiting with my dad in the hallway, I complained about how unfair it was for grandpa. With a stressful sigh, dad rubbed my head and told me that how life is in the third world country. This was a tough reality to accept. After my grandpa's death, the drama did not stop there for my family. My 40-year-old uncle also passed away leaving his wife and 2 children due to liver cancer. The gloominess was dragging over the whole family for years. It was obvious that my grandpa and uncle's situations were just ones of many cases that needed professional medical assistance. Those two events have sparked in me a need to take part in changing this sad reality in the current world, specifically in the medical

My most meaningful interaction was with a patient who had dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This patient came into the ER with her daughter, but was confused as to who everyone was, including her daughter. The doctors and daughter struggled to calm the patient, who was disoriented after suffering a traumatic fall. This fall may not have occurred had there been a full-time care giver, but due to the family’s lack of financial resources the daughter was unable to secure full time care for her mother. I relayed what I had learned from our conversation to the patient’s doctors in hopes that they could help the daughter find a solution. This interaction gave me a first-hand experience of the struggles of low socio-economic families in the health

Many of my family members reside in economically depressed areas of Chicago and many have the health conditions that are commonly exhibited amongst members of low-income communities. As a result, when I see a patient from an underserved community I am reminded of some of my relatives who have become victims of their own social determinants of health. Their images push and inspire me to become a physician that will actively advocate for my patients and will use my skills as a servant leader to transcend any obstacles or barriers placed before

While most children grew up with healthy parents, I grew up with my grandparents and assisted with their care. I witnessed my grandfather have a stroke that affected his speech and his ability to walk, and my grandmother develop Alzheimer’s disease. This childhood affected me greatly because they were my parents and I hated to see them going through the difficulties of aging. I noticed how vulnerable they became, these people that I watched and admired unable to speak and walk changed how I viewed the world and patient care.

For an organizational analysis of my current context, I decided to select Option A: Adizes: Focus on Organizational Lifecycle. Everything has a lifecycle, from geological formations to people, societies, and civilizations. Of course, organizations, too, go through different stages – they grow, change, and then, they disintegrate. Even though none of this comes as a surprise to anyone, yet some organizations and their leadership may not be ready to embrace the change and still be sustainable and efficient. As Ichak Adizes boldly suggests in his book, "The challenge of leadership on any level – individual, family, organization, and society – is to change continuously and, nevertheless, always remain together" (1999, 9). As organizations go through different stages, each time they are presented with the peculiar challenges. In many cases, new difficulties cannot be resolved with the old methods and attitudes. Without abandoning their old customs, organizations can be at risk to stagnate or even fall apart as they advancing through numerous transitions. The majority of organizations would encounter similar lifecycle stages; however, they would need to develop certain abilities in order to advance forward in the lifecycle.

I am a privileged person. I am white. I am upper-middle class. I am university educated. I am thin. I have parents who are still married to each other. I have always had some form of part time work since starting high school. I have no student debt. I am straight. I am Christian. I am an extrovert. I have a strong voice and an even stronger opinion. This made a class on inequality difficult to relate to but if anything, its shown that I do not have even the most basic understanding of what some of my less privileged peers go through everyday. Because of my privilege and powerful voice, I found it extremely difficult to express my opinions in this class because I either felt like a hypocrite or I felt domineering thus I took a silent position attempting to not only understand how some of my peers feel but also because I had never understood what it was like to be unable to share my individual opinions and stories. Although the silence was unintentional, as I went through reading my classmates posts I found myself frustrated because of something I differed in opinion on or because I felt that a grouping to which I belonged was being misrepresented and there was nothing I could do to address the situation.

There have been plenty of times where I found myself asking if what I was doing was truly worth it. I have always been one to struggle with getting things done, because I have this mindset of questioning certain things I do. Why am I in college? Why do I put myself through stress and torture to get good grades when I could just be mediocre? Oh right, I will not give up until I get to where I want to be. Even though it is going to take a lot of time and effort, the thing motivating me the most is knowing that once I walk across that stage to receive my diploma that sense of accomplishment is the ultimate prize. I set extreme goals for myself because I am a very competitive person; sometimes too extreme. I have to build up a lot of will-power to get some of things done. It is all really in my head though. Some tasks take more will power and effort than others, but the feeling of doing it myself is so empowering. Now whenever I take on new tasks, I just keep in mind that even though it may take a while for me to accomplish, when I do finally finish it all on my own there is no greater feeling.

“We wish you all a productive course.” A simple, dry line uttered by the teacher as I headed in for what I knew would be a grueling experience. A meditation retreat conducted entirely in “noble silence” and dedicated to finally understanding what enlightenment is. Noble silence, they called it, was the act of working as if we were alone in complete silence; alone I was in a secluded place, two hours north of Chicago amongst miles of flat cornfields where the roar of speeding cars overshadows the squawks of Canadian geese flying overhead. The place was the Illinois Vipassanā Meditation Center and it is where I chose to make my final attempt at achieving spiritual enlightenment. This silence was said to help get previous students to the goal of enlightenment. It was a goal that, at the time, I could barely define and had little clue to the gravity of what I was about to embark on. In the end, I would witness one of the noble truths of all existence: Impermanence is inherent in all physical and mental phenomena; all that arises in the Universe will surely pass away.

When I first became interested in what was going on in the world I always turned to the News Channel or a documentary to inform me on that days current event. I never opened a newspaper, magazine, book etc. because I felt it was less time consuming, more intriguing and easier to understand if I listened to the story being told rather than reading it. Because of this class and our weekly article assignments, I realized it is much more interesting to open up a newspaper or print out an article to read rather than watch a television screen to inform me on what is going on in the world today. Not only did this class help me enjoy reading more but it also taught me the real meaning behind key terms and cases that can help me make better use of the article I am reading rather than trying to understand what the story is. I truly believe these article assignments caused a major positive impact on my reading skills, understanding and use of the context and all around better knowledge on what is going on in the world today.

Let me start off by saying the knowledge I gained during this course is unmatched. It was overall a fun course and gave me a deeper understanding of topics I had never previously explored in American History. The way the professor conducted the class was all around smooth. I must agree my group members and I have become lifelong friends. I didn’t believe at the beginning but here we are. Many topics were studied but some that stood out to me is how Abraham Lincoln is basically a fraud he did everything for the benefit of himself, Holocaust and how America help fund it, how slaves were treated and reparations, criminal justice system in America, Eugenics, also secrets inside the Army including the money we waste within the military (The weapon funding of Al Qaeda). Amongst other social issues.

When I was around seven, I learned a valuable lesson of listening to your parents. Even to this day my parents would bring up that time to warm us not to do anything dumb. Whenever I am near the water, it reminds me of the stupid game that my brother and I used to do.

To be sure, John, I could never hope to sum up this entire experience in a hundred pages, let alone one or two. That said, this paper will center on the dangers of cliche´, staying in your own lane, and continuous improvement. Despite their seemingly innocuous nature, these particular topics are fundamental aspects of learning any art and cannot be stressed too greatly.