Final Paper Reflection

            My biggest challenge in researching and writing my proposal would have to be actually deciding on the problem and knowing what information I need to research in order to solve the problem. My problem for St. Luke’s was getting volunteers that experienced in different fields of medicine. The thing is I kept changing mine so I had to do more and more research. Eventually I knew what I wanted to do. I spent a good amount of time doing the actual research because it was hard to find the right information. I thought to myself “how do I find factual information on volunteering.” I broke it down into pieces. I looked at other medical clinic websites to see statistics about their volunteers. I ended up finding a few which helped me out big time.

            When I came to writing my proposal, it was also a little difficult. When I write a paper I like to have examples to look at which is one thing I loved about this class is that we had that. By looking at the examples I found out how to set up my introduction in the form of two paragraphs. I also found out how to set up my thesis. One thing that helped the most was the conference with Mrs. Thomas. She really gave me a good idea of how to complete my paper.

            I feel like the best element to my final proposal would have to be my introduction. I feel like I really introduced the problem well. I started with explaining what a free medical clinic is and what they do for people as well as their mission. As I continued my introduction I started to get more specific by discussing St. Luke’s Free Medical Clinic. I talked about my experience volunteering their and the problems I saw their. After that I got into my thesis. It created well developed part by part introduction.

           I feel like the weakest element of my final proposal is the conclusion. I was kind of lost when it came to the conclusion. I spent a long time trying to come up with different ways I could write one but none of it was any good. Once I got to go to my student conference, Mrs. Thomas explained really well on what to include in my conclusion. It made things a lot easier for me. Even though Mrs. Thomas helped me, I still felt my conclusion was missing something but I just couldn’t figure it out.

    I think that I could have done a few things differently. I think that with the literature review I could have probably asked more questions in class to help myself out and done some research on my own time to help. I think if I started the proposal a little earlier I could have done more research which in turn would help with proposal.

        Over all I feel like my paper was a success and ended up turning out really well. I did the research that was needed and proposed a well thought up solution. These proposals are a good idea because if anything I'm sure at least one of these papers can make a difference at these nonprofit organizations. 

                

Every other day at St. Luke's, the work I did was pretty much the same, calling and filing. I did not want to do anything else because mostly all the other jobs you needed to have experience for which I didn't. I guess the only other thing I could have done is the front desk job. Im pretty sure that there was some inexperienced people doing jobs that a nurse would. Not sure how that was possible but hey.

St. luke's continued

Another job that St. luke's  had me do was filing medial records. They didn't really show me exactly how to file them. When they train new volunteers they don't really do a good job to be honest. Even though, I could figure it out, it wasn't hard. Filing probably took me the longest because there was just so many medical records. I was surprised they didn't just have all the information on a computer in stead of on paper. There was barely any room left for any more records. If anything they need to buy another book shelf. One thing I noticed was that as I was filing I started to realized that a lot of the records were out of order. It's going to suck when they have to go look for them. Anytime I saw one out of order I tried to put it in the right place to help out a little.

Working at St. Luke's Continued...

My first day working at St. Luke's was a success over all. I can not lie that it was kind of boring. I did not know what to expect at first but it was all good. My job for the day was to call their patients in order to remind them of their appointments. The people that were working with me were really cool and funny. I was like "OK this isn't so bad," however, they gave 5 sheets of paper completely full of names and phone numbers I had to call. I felt like I was constantly repeating myself over the phone but it wasn't so bad. It got really bad when I discovered that some of their patients don't even speak English. A lot of them speak Spanish. I don't know if they thought I was Hispanic or what. I remember one phone call I made to one of the patients where I told him that I was calling from St. Luke's and etc and he goes "who is this?" I said "St. Luke's" then he said "where is that at?" At that point I just couldn't help but laugh. Like you go to St. Luke's to get free health care and your asking me where it's at? I think it took me like almost 2 hours to finish calling everyone. That was only my first job for that day.

Day 1 @ St. lukes Lawend Barzenji

My first day at St. Lukes Free Medical clinic was a success. I did not actually get to do any work but it was cool to see how the whole place opperates even though they are a free medical clinic. I found out that they run entirely on donated money. That is really impressive because medical stuff requires lots of money. They Provide health care to uninsured patients and even provide prescription medication for free. Their patients are really nice people as well. The way they treat their patients is through their system of volunteer doctors who don't even get paid to work their. Not only do they have doctor volunteers but anyone can help them out, which is why I went there today.

Service Learning Visual Product- Lawend Barzenji

How Can St. Lukes Provide Free Medical Care to Uninsured People and Provide A More Variety of Medical Service

           Recently I have been doing service work for St. Lukes Medical Clinic. They are a clinic that gives free medical service to people who have insurance but can not afford to pay for medical service. Even though It provides a great service there still are problems that they run into. One problem that I noticed was that they do not provide medical care to uninsured people and they do not provide any kind of dental care what so ever. This does not affect me personally but it does effect the community of Spartanburg. The first thing that they told us when I started my service work was that they do not provide dental work. Dental work is really expensive compared to getting treated for sickness. I mean just to get braces is a few thousand dollars. Having bad teeth can lead to disease as well. Some people can not even afford medical insurance, where those people go to get treated? That is why I think this is a huge problem because if St. Lukes is willing to help people get treated for free with medical insurance then why not people with out it. The steakholders of the problem would be the patients, volunteering doctors, staff of St. Lukes, and nurses. For this problem I will be doing research using academic search complete on the USC Upstate library online resources as well as books and other scholarly websites.

Questions I have for the topic/steakholders
1. How can we raise money to help uninsured people
2. How can we raise money to help get dentist materials
3. Where can we get donations for equipment
4. Can we provide insurance for the uninsured
5. How can we get dentists to come in and volunteer
6. is it possible to help those who are uninsured
7. How can we get doctors to come in and volunteer more often
8. Can we set up a work schedule for volunteers instead of just letting them come in when they feel like it.
9. Do people with insurance still have to pay out of their own pocked
10. How can donations help with the problem

I have found a few resources as E-books and in academic search complete. I always seem to run into problems when typing papers and so far I have trouble with knowing what to research. For example finding  the right key words to use in my research.

self assessment-Essay 2

                Our second paper for English 102 was an argument analysis paper. We had to look up sources about an issue that was related to our service learning work. Since I work at a medical clinic I decided to do something on the privacy of medical records.
                 I think that I did really well on summarizing and analyzing each of my sources. Some people tend to summarize when they are trying to analyze but I feel like my paper does a good job of separating the two. First I summarized the source then after that wrote my interpretation of the source. When I analyze papers I think to myself  "what do I make of it?" It helps keep me in check.
                I think the best part of my argument analysis essay is the first source that I cover. I think it is the best part because I had a lot to go from because of the source. The author of the article gave valid reasoning and evidence. He even had very good credibility compared to my second source which made analyzing it a lot easier as well as picking a side to agree with.
                To make my paper better I would probably summarize a bit more for each source. At times I felt that the summaries might have not had enough detail but then again it is a summary after all. I always seem to have the problem of knowing whether or not my summary is well typed up.
                I learn a lot from the papers we write in all honesty. I think the thing I learned the most, however, from writing my argument analysis paper is how to find fallacies in articles and other things. The biggest thing we went over in class was the fallacies. If I were to go back one year and read an article, I would not even notice or think about any fallacies but now when I read I tend to look for them or just notice them.

Argument Analysis summary Lawend Barzenji

            In the article Give Up Your Data To Cure Disease, by David B. Agus, discusses his argument about how electronic health care systems are hurting the health system according to doctors, but he says otherwise. Agus says "neither doctors nor patients are happy with it."  His main point or argument is that medical discoveries have been made by reviewing people's medical data. He then contends that more people should be willing to share their medical records with doctors to help cure disease.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/opinion/sunday/give-up-your-data-to-cure-disease.html?ref=topics&_r=0 



             The article Give Up Your Data To Cure Disease? Not So Fast!, by Deborah Peel, is basically a counter argument against the first article. Deborah starts of by saying that yes, patients records may hold information to cure disease, however, that information is personal data and should not be shared. Peel says that when we give our doctors that information we are trusting them to keep it safe and not share it. She claims it is personal information that should not be shared. She says "it destroys a human right, the right to privacy."

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/02/09/give-up-your-data-to-cure-disease-not-so-fast/

Self Assessment: Essay 1 Lawend Barzenji

                         When I first began this assignment I thought that it would just be another paper to write, a chore, if that is what you want to call it, but as a I did some brainstorming, writing, and research my idea of this paper changed because I found a topic that really caught my interests. My teacher, Mrs. Thomas, told us that we could go on ted.com and find an issue related to our service learning project. So I went on ted.com and spent about two days finding something I really wanted to research. I found a speech about why we should use blood from young humans to cure diseases that come with age. That is a break through in the medical world so I had to stick with his argument. When selecting this speech I just thought about whether or not it related to my service learning project and if the speaker gave a valid argument including evidence and other point of views.
                      The most difficult issue I came across while writing was mainly how I wanted my topics from my thesis ordered. I didn't want to just mash it all together and go on from one topic to another. I wanted it to flow, I wanted transitions, which I am not the best at. What I did was basically just mash my topics together, I know I just said that I didn't want to do that but I rearranged my paragraphs after I finished my paper.
                      Along with writing my paper I got a few people to help me revise it. My teacher, Mrs. Thomas commented on our rough drafts on Kizena as well as a student from my class that I was partnered up with to for revising and my brother. I was told that my paper was good but that I should clear up my thesis. Also my brother told me to include more quotes from the speech and a few other things. I took everyone's advice because I am not a good writer so any advice I get I put it into consideration.
                    I think that my paper had some typical strong and weak points. The strong points would have to be the parts of me discussing how the speaker used rhetoric in his speech. The weak points is probably my conclusion if anything. I have never been well with ending a paper. I always feel like I have given the information that is needed so there is no need to conclude. Sometimes conclusions feel empty to me and pointless so I hate writing them. For my conclusion I just looked at the sample essay my teacher provided to give me an idea of what will be expected. It helped out a lot. I really like that fact that she gives us sample essays.
                  In the next essay assignment I will probably spend more time with the research and on writing my paper. I want to make sure that my paper is going to be well developed so I will try to do a little of it at a time over a period of days. I will also spend more time on my thesis because I feel that a weak thesis leads to a weak paper.

Basic Questions For Rhetorical Analysis by Lawend Barzenji

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

                   

                     The speaker of the speech ,Do Schools Kill Creativity, by Ken Robinson, a University professor contends that schools kill creativity. He brings about his own perspective towards the topic using real life examples he has witnessed and experienced. He speaks to an audience with the intention of convincing them that students loose creativity as they continue through today school system. Robinson proves that schools kill creativity by explaining the school system and using real life examples. He argues that all schools have the same hierarchy of subjects with language and mathematics at the the top and that the education system is based on academic ability, pretty much nothing else. He says that people are kept away from things they enjoy or things they are talented at. 

                      Robinson speaks directly to an audience. The speech is also targeted towards people of the education system such as teachers, principles, university professors, etc. It is also targeted towards all people in general. Robinson is serious as he speaks about this argument however he does joke a little to lighten the audience. He uses a bit of sarcasm which I found pretty funny. He also uses things like metaphors and he has a subtle tone.

TED Talks Speech (Rhetorical analysis) Lawend Barzenji

http://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all


                 I saw a really interesting TED talk on ted.com by Ken Robinson. The talk was on creativity of kids and students. Robinson explains that creativity is having original ideas that have values. The main argument or question was whether or not schools kill creativity. Ken Robinson contended that they do. He explained that education systems are basically all the same every where in the world. "They teach the same hierarchy for subjects with math and language at the top" (Robinson). It does not leave room for students to explore and learn about their talents.
                  According to Robinson, creativity is as important as literacy. He went on to talk about how kids are not frightened about being wrong. He said that as we get older and continue or education we are taught  to lose that capacity. The thing about not being afraid of being wrong is "if your not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original." Robinson contends that kids are taken away form things that they are most likely not going to get a job from such as dancing, sports, or music. We are not pressured to learn those things as much as math, language, or history. Towards the end of the speech, Robinson talked of a girl who he knew that could not sit still in class and was getting lower grades. Her mom took her to the doctor to see what was wrong. the doctor wanted to talk to her mom privately and as her mom and doctor were leaving the room, the doctor played the radio. when the doctor and the girls mom came back to the room they saw she was dancing. The doctor concluded "your child is not sick, she is a dancer." Robinson said that her mom put her in a dancing school and she is now a multi-millionaire from dancing. It was her creativity not her education that took her far in life.

Changing the World by Lawend Barzenji

              If there was one thing I could change about the world and I had unlimited resources I would find a cure to cancer. Cancer is a big deal to me because my mom passed away from it. It has affected my life and a ton of my friends lives. I can not even imagine what it feels like to live with something so horrid.  I feel like cancer is becoming more and more common and something should be done about it before it keeps growing. I think if I had unlimited resources I could cure it, not just me but anyone could. I believe the cure is out there, it just needs to be discovered.

              First thing that I would do is dedicate my entire time to researching cancer. I would start from the basics. I would study what cancer is and the different forms of cancer. Next I would study it in more detail. For example, how cancer attacks, how it develops in the body, and whether it is genetic. I would then go to school and study to become a doctor and get a job specializing in dealing with patients who have cancer. This way I would be able to not only study cancer from the internet or a book but also look at a real life person with cancer. I would see how the cancer is acting in their body. As a doctor I would have my own lab where I would construct different experiments everyday and test them on animals. Eventually I would discover a cure and test it on humans. Since I have unlimited resources it would be much easier for me. I would not need donations or anything like that. 

              It would change the world for the better. People would not have to live in fear of cancer anymore. I would make it so that being diagnosed with cancer would be the equivalent to being diagnosed the common cold. I can only begin to imagine all the lives that would be saved. I don't know if it would completely change the world but I could sleep better at night knowing millions of people out there could sleep with one less thing to worry about.