Project Name- Debunking the Medical Field
Essential Question: Why is it that some people have almost unlimited medical care when others have none?
Through experience and reading.
Plan: I am hoping to gain an understanding of the medical field combining hands-on experiences with reading medical literature, interviewing doctors, and listening to medical ethics lectures.
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 under qualified 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 just, 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.
At this point, I am considering the medical track for college. I was hoping to be able to do a hospital observership for my senior project, but due to the pandemic this seems unlikely. Due to the current situation, there are not many internship opportunities available in the medical field. However, if I were to do an internship, I wanted to have a more hands on approach to understanding the field of medicine rather than just an online experience. In considering how I can gain insight on the field without physically being there, I asked my uncle, who is the executive vice chairman of the Department of Radiology and chief of the Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology at Columbia University, New York Presbyterian hospital, for advice. He said that if I could go back in time and have the time chunk I had to when he was my age, he would get his EMT licensing. In doing this, I could get real world experience in a way that I cannot do through an internship. I looked into EMT licensing and found that they offer in person and online classes during the pandemic so it would be possible to achieve this. I am hoping to be able to get my EMT certification through an accelerated course during the time of senior project.
At the same time, I am planning on learning more about medical inequalities through reading, interviews, and lectures. I am going to be reading narratives, similar to my English elective class, of personal stories from people of different racial and economic backgrounds. I have many doctors in my family (an uncle at Columbia and my dad’s cousin working in doctors without borders). My grandfather also holds a lecture about medical inequalities at the hospital he worked at, and I am planning on listening to lectures or reading manuscripts that he has held in the past. With this parallel perspective, I will be able to understand the root of medical inequalities. That way I can gain a more rounded understanding from the doctor and patient perspective. 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. My final product plan is going to be an interactive presentation where you can listen to interviews and read more about different stories about medical narratives.
This idea is feasible because there are many EMT courses offered online, as well as ones altered to be done safely during COVID. I have signed up for a class that runs through the time that we have 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
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MRVD3TEQDgcEd0bcbxTAPd27977_QdVIG0IBKfWUZZ0/edit?usp=sharing