Medical/Human Biology Reflection: (Exhibition 2013)
During this project, In Sickness & In Health we did a lot of different projects within our different classes. Our first project for art was called “Pieces of Me.” This project was by far one of my favorites due to it being so personal to myself. When Mrs.Shani first told us about this project I was excited because there really wasn’t any limits. All she said was to create an art piece that represents yourself, and that just burst my creativity with so many ideas. Once I finally choose the picture I was going to use it was all just the matter of making sure the colors were mixed/matched correctly with the actual picture. I think the hardest part of this project was the emotions that came up during the process of painting my final piece. To me the lessons with the 9th graders were a breeze. I thought creating the activity was fun and then having them take the test to see if they actually retained the information. I think the hardest part of doing these lessons were trying to get there attention and holding it for a certain amount of time. To me it was really frustrating when they were talking and you were trying to present. This made me realize how teachers feel when they are trying to talk or do a lecture with myself and my peers. The hardest part of the research paper was finding the correct information to use, and what to use and what not to use. Also finding enough research so that we had enough pages. To me once I started researching and my thoughts started flowing then I just continued to type and before I knew it I was done. Overall, the research paper taught me a lot of things about my disease and some things that I never even knew. I enjoy researching and questioning certain theories. In Biology we had to interview a scientist and or doctor that studies or practices the disease I was studying. In the beginning I thought it was going to be really hard but then I spoke with my doctor and he had a lot of connections for me. I began to email them and every single one of them responded which was really great. Now it just came down to narrowing down my options and choosing the professional that was going to be able to give me the information I needed. I really enjoyed this and I really enjoyed speaking with Dr.Sun who is a pediatric cardiologist. She had a lot of information and insight about Heart Failure in detail. And she really seemed like she knew what she was talking about and most of all the follow-up questions I asked she was able to answer. Overall my experience with my interview was great. After we conducted our interviews we then did an art piece called creative commissions which was basically an art piece based on the things that my professional studied as well as things she wanted me to share with the general public. When I first found out we were going to be using colored pencils for the color in our pieces I thought to myself “wow this is really going to suck and it won’t look professional. I really blew myself out of the water once I was done because I thought it turned out really nice. Overall I believe I did okay on the Oral History project. I wish I could have the resources needed on my home computer because without them I wasn’t able to work on it outside of school which sometimes got stressful. Interviewing my dad about my great-grandma was a really good experience for myself because I was able to learn a lot of things that I never knew before about her condition. Sometimes it got a little emotional because she was a very special woman to me. The first dissection that we did was the sheep brain that was really interesting to me because I enjoy learning how the brain works. After we completed the dissection I took the Hippocampus (part of your brain that is in charge of memory) and mounted it using an epoxy from Michael’s which was really bad because it had a horrid smell. I really enjoyed doing the pig dissection because I have done it before in 7th grade so I remembered a lot I also learned a lot of new things. I enjoyed learning about the human anatomy it is so interesting to me. All of these projects were done in preparation for Exhibition. By doing all the research and lessons etc help with the material that was going to be covered on Exhibition night.
During this whole project a major thing I learned was to have everything in moderation. Not everything is always bad for you as long as its not a lot of bad things all the time. I think this will help me maintain my health and stay fit. Also the goal I created for myself of going to the gym at least 3 times/week I learned helps me a lot. Now that I don’t have a health plan to follow I sometimes slack off and eat too much junk food and don’t exercise enough. But I have not come in contact with not staying on track. When I go off track I always seem to find my way back on. Another goal I had was to get a nutri bullet and start to juice and I got one for christmas so now I am able to follow through with that goal. Juicing makes me feel really good and also helps me stay energized throughout the day. Over break I had a lot of encounters with this project. One was on Christmas Eve and I was eating a lot of food and then I felt really stuffed and then it just made me think I need to continue my health plan so I can stay fit. Also I went to Lake Havasu and there was times when I was like if I do this even just for a little bit it will help me stay active so that I am on a constant schedule. An example would be when I was thinking of going quading and then I was like I am so tired and sore and then I thought to myself if I just lay there it will just get worse so that's when I decided to go.
Well when we did the Infographics for math it changed my perspective big time on healthcare as a whole and how it will begin to affect everyone not just me. Also like I was interested in the healthcare portion so I really looked into it and found out a lot of things I never knew about healthcare. This project also made me think a lot about the medications I put in my body. Mr.Leader taught me a lot about the effects of medications and antibiotics on my body. Now I only take medicine if I am in dire need of it or if the doctor really thinks I need it to get better. I also went through a lot of family medical issues during this project that made me think a lot about medicine and our health care system. My uncle is going through chemotherapy right now and during it there has been a lot of things going on with his health insurance carrier and they way our government can get and it just put a lot of things in perspective for me. I would still like to do something like the 23andMe thing so I can learn more about the diseases that run in my family that I don’t know about yet. Also since I am a young woman and breast cancer does run in my family I would like to see when its time to start getting mammograms etc to prevent myself from getting it. I would like to educate myself on breast cancer because I don’t really know a lot about it. Now that I have studied all aspects of medicine the field I am really interested in is psychology and how your mind works especially like criminal minds. I am also interested in children. I know for sure I want to be in the medical field for sure though.
I want to learn a lot more about the brain and how it works and certain situations affect the human as a whole. I am really interested in psychology. I think that is going to be my major in college. I am also really interested and drawn to the study of life as a whole. So I don’t know where that will lead me to in college but I guess we will see. I haven’t decided yet if I want to double major or not but I am pretty sure I want to so I have more chances of getting the career I want and also have more experience. I have always been interested in being a doctor since I have been a kid so I just guess where life will lead me. All I know is I love medicine/health/biology and I love helping people and making them happy when they are sick and just for them to know that I am there for them even in their hardest times of life. I think the things I went through throughout my life have also made this passion stronger. I really would like to have a psychologist come in or someone who works with juveniles. Also an ER doctor would be super awesome… I would really like some more hands on seminars now since we are getting so close to internship. I think hands on would be helpful for internship. Other than that I am not really sure. Oh also an anesthesiologist would be really cool because I have always been interested in doing that as well. Also maybe an ICU/NICU doctor.
Health Plan Write-Up: In biology, creating our health-plan and then reflecting on it afterwards was a key to this whole exhibition. This is what started it all. It was a really good experience overall. If you would like to read through my health plan and my reflections you are more then welcome to.