Slide 1: Project Name- Debunking the Medical Field

Slide 2: Essential question- Why is it that some people have almost unlimited medical care when others have none?

Slide 3: Challenges-

As some of you may know, In my summer before Junior year, I travelled to Cambodia with an organization that I had been volunteering with throughout the year called Tassel. The program is meant to provide English education to people in rural areas of Cambodia who are suffering financially and emotionally due to the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide. During the trip, we went on many visits to students’ homes and talked to families about their living conditions. Something that struck me was the abysmal health care system that many families have in many villages in Cambodia. There are very little hospitals, so when people are in need for medical care, they often need to walk for many hours, sometimes even days to get to a reach one, and oftentimes when they arrive, there is no medicine, or underqualified doctors who cannot do anything to help.

It wasn’t until last year, when I took an English elective class called Literature of Medicine when I realized this could be a problem even in our own country – which is considered to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. In this class, we analyzed medical literature written from perspectives of doctors and patients of different racial and economic stand points. It was the first time that I had really seen medicine as such an intersectional profession. It is not as black and white in terms of helping people who are in need as it is made out to be. Growing up with many of my relatives being doctors, I have been fortunate enough to never have to even consider worrying about health care. Travelling to Cambodia, and reading these narratives, I was struck at the horrific medical inequalities within our world and even in our country.

In my senior project, I would like to consider what the reasonings are behind these inequalities, and also just uncover more issues within the profession. Once I have gained a better understanding, I would like to bring these issues to light and consider different solutions to these issues.

In terms of new paths to redesigning NYC:

• I don’t know about how exactly it would correlate to physically redesigning the city, but I think that this pandemic has definitely brought to light the stark differences in medical care that people receive. We saw how when the former president got sick, he was taken in a helicopter and given the highest possible care, while people in lower income communities were struggling because they were financially obligated to continue going to work. So I think that there are definitely ways to redistribute the health care that people receive around the city.

Slide 4: What am I planning to do-

• I would like to approach this issue through real like experience and also reading narratives and interviewing people in the field
• For a real like experience I am going to be doing an EMT program → i have already signed up for a class that runs through the time that we have for senior project, and i am planning on working on it during the time that we have
• Readings – in my medical ethics class, we read many narratives about medical ethics and inequalities
• Interviews – i have many doctors in my family – I am going to interview my uncle who works at columbia – my dad’s cousin worked for doctors without borders – and my grandpa runs a seminar about medical ethics (i can listen to old seminars)
• Right now I am still considering whether I keep it to just the United States, or if I want to take it to a global scale and interview cambodian teachers that i know through my tassel program because i know that the health care there is really bad
• My final product is going to be an interactive presentation where you can listen to interviews and read more about different stories about medical narratives

Slide 5: Next steps-

• In terms of the EMT program, I have signed up for a class that runs through the time that we have for senior project
• I have some material from my my Literature of Medicine class, and I am planning on searching for more material
• My family members, I will be able to contact, and I am going to ask my grandfather to send me transcripts or recordings of past lectures about medical ethics.
• In terms of the final product, I am going to watch videos about how to do those interactive presentations because I have never really done anything like that before

Slideshow link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MRVD3TEQDgcEd0bcbxTAPd27977_QdVIG0IBKfWUZZ0/edit?usp=sharing