Response to Alyssa's Blog Post

I am writing this blog in response to Alyssa’s blog post about asthma in underprivileged children.

Reading the blog post, I became fascinated by the article Alyssa described.  I had never thought about the rich-poor gap affecting young children’s health in this way.  I ended up searching for the article because I wanted to learn more.  I could not find the specific article, but came across other articles and journals that explained more about the issue.  Alyssa talks about the reason that underprivileged children are more likely to be caused harm in relation to the diagnosis of asthma and complications due to this disease is because there tends to be more allergens present in poorer areas of the world.

This being said, I must disagree with some of what Alyssa says about the healthcare for poorer people.  Healthcare is a means to stay or become healthy, meaning we should obviously help out those in need of medical attention and care.  However, this should not mean that the government should ration healthcare.  If some people do not have adequate healthcare, we as a nation should work to fix that.  If we can give everyone a MINIMUM healthcare system we would solve the problem that causes poorer citizens to be lacking in health.  It is not necessary to lower healthcare standards for other people in order to give poor people healthcare when we can work towards giving healthcare to all people.

In conclusion, Alyssa has picked a very interesting article that can obviously be taken in various manners, but the issue addressed must be taken notice of in any case.  When the lives of our neighbors and friends are in danger, we could make sure we do everything in our power to aid in eradicating the problem that affects them.  It is our civic duty to help others and solve problems in our country.

Self-Evaluation of Speech

This is my self-evaluation of my speech.  After viewing the speech on the flicker site, I think that I did quite well in giving my speech to the class.  I did not seem very nervous at all and I was not too laid back.  I did run over time a little bit, but that was just a slight planning error.  My speech seemed to be delivered smoothly, in my opinion.  One bad thing I noticed, however, was that I played with my papers a bit too much.  It slightly subtracted from the point I was trying to make about my topic.  Also, I fidgeted with my sleeves, which had the same effect.  My voice inflection seemed normal.  I thought I spoke clearly and with proper variation for the type of speech I was giving.  The speed was good; I paced myself through the speech so I would not have too much time spent on one thing over another and not go too far over the time limit, while I made sure to not rush through my delivery and run under the time minimum.  My visual aids were good; I used adequate pictures of my equipment.  However, I could have added in a video or an actual picture of a wake surfer to show the class what the sport really looks like.  Also, my speech was delivered in a manner that made sense.  I had correct ordering of steps and I set up my introduction and conclusion well so it agreed with my process.  In conclusion, I thought my speech went very well.  I am ready for the next speech, but I really want to get it over with.

I found a blog that talks about car accident victim who has become permanently altered in brain function due to head trauma and concussion symptoms.  The blogger, with the pseudonym “Resilientheart,” has been writing consistently for the past couple years.  He started blogging on August 15, 2008, in order to tell people about the head trauma he had sustained.  He blogs to comment on his life; he talks of every day activities, setbacks that keep him from living a normal life, and the progress he is making with therapy and things.  He does not use Links, most likely because it is a personal blog.  However, he uses some media like videos and recordings to illustrate what he is going through.  Is informative and knows how to touch people through his stories of triumphs and toils.

This blog post is all about concussions.  It talks of concussion symptoms and restrictions.  It tells stories about real people who have had concussions in the past.  It also uses citations from extremely credible sources like Mayo Clinic, the University of Pittsburgh, and several others.  In effect, this blog is the electronic equivalent of the paper I wrote for my Letters and Sciences Communications 100 course.

            This was written on March 25^th, 2009, by a collaboration of people under the group name “Health Care Compliance.”  This group creates a lot of posts about medically related things.  In many respects, I feel that this blog is for the benefit of health care professionals.  Unfortunately, the bloggers have not taken the time to set up interesting media displays or use links in their posts.  This makes the blog seem very dull and boring.  If there were more links to information, more graphs, etc., there would most likely be more people viewing their information.

The blog is in a very different format from the paper I wrote for class.  Not only is it much more casual in tone, but also it lacks certain structure that would allow it to be called a professional work.

RE: Selling Organs?

This post is in response to Megan Courtney’s post.

I completely agree.  I mean, lets be honest, selling organs is pretty creepy.  Imagine walking into your local convenience store with a shopping list in hand.  Your list reads: milk, eggs, butter, NEW KIDNEY.  I mean what the hell, buy organs is insane!  As I said in my post, it presents a health risk to donor and recipients alike.

Ok, ok.  I realize that it is highly unorthodox to criticize an idea like selling organs by saying you can buy them in a convenience store, but you all get the point.  Doesn’t anyone find it slightly odd that I could just walk in to a hospital and say, “where do I sell my kidney?”  It seems a little funny to me.  It strikes a funny feeling in a lot of people, which is part of the reason it is illegal.  Not only does in NOT happen, but it SHOULD NOT happen.  People who are only interested in selling organs for profit cannot be expected to be thinking about all the risks involved with giving up part of their bodies to give to another person in exchange for monetary compensation.

Arguments about the eradication of the transplant waiting list can be made, but how realistic can these really be? Not all parts can be donated while retaining the life of the donor.  This is why medical experts examine those who have died or will die, to see if their organs are satisfactory to be used in saving the lives of others.  If we use some of their parts, why can’t we use all of them? If they are in ok shape, why not use all parts that the patient has given consent to be used.

Organs for Sale????????

No! I do not believe organs should be able to be sold at random.  Allowing people to sell organs on an open market would also allow huge slips in medical safety.  At the rate that patients would demand to sell organs, physicians could not provide a service to aid them in their goal in a safe and hygienic manner.  Also, this would provide a weakness in security for organs donated.  Not only could people potentially sell organs that were of a sketchy background, but also use these organs to target groups of people.  This could almost be considered a new form of terrorism.  By selling organs that are infected by different diseases, people who want to harm others can do so in more discrete and protected manner.  Not only could this situation cause a health problem for those who accept donor organs, but also it could also deeply impact the people who donate parts of their bodies.  By allowing people to sell tissues such as kidneys, skin or bone grafts, etc., donors could cause themselves harm when they contract an illness or become injured and need the parts that they sold for a profit.

         After reading the article my opinion stays the same.  I do not believe that allowing people to sell their organs will help as much as it will hurt people.  When donors think of lives they will save, they tend to overlook the fact that they can potentially risk their own lives.  I do agree that people should be able to take control of their own bodies and do what they want with what they own and are entitled too, but the ethics of this situation concern more than just the people donating organs and those whose lives they are saving.  Offering compensation for organs would not allow these transplants to be considered “donations,” but rather as income.