Blog 16: Independent Component 2 Plan Approval

1. For my Independent Component 2, I plan on doing an excess amount of service learning 
2. Every Sunday, I do an 8 hour shift at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. If I continue working on Sundays, i will easily fulfill the 30 hour requirement.
3. My Independent Component relates to my EQ because I am trying to discover what the best way is to become a successful psychiatrist. By volunteering at a hospital, i am able to combine what I have learned throughout the year from research into my service learning. Also, through first-hand experience, I am able to get a better feel for the medical community, which i believe, is very important to becoming a successful psychiatrist.

Blog #15: Independent Component 1

Log of hours: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Alm-Z8n5yVdZdHpOUDFMN0s0TndwdW1makk5RFlHSUE

1. Literal:
• I, John Shahin, affirm that I completed my Independent Component which represents 30 hours of work.
• For my Independent Component, I have done an excess amount of service learning, which entails 8 hours of volunteering at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center's Emergency Room. At the Emergency room, I shadow Physicians, Nurses, and EMT's as they do their job. As a volunteer I also help keep the hospital running smoothly by restocking different materials such as linens and medical supplies in hospital rooms, I take specimens to labs, I assist with different tests such as EKG, blood pressure, and blood oxygen monitors.
2. Applied: 
• My service learning has reflected 30 hours of work because I have continuously attended my Sunday shifts since the first week of senior year. On Sundays, I drive down to Los Angeles to complete my 8 hour shift which begins at 8am and ends at 4pm.

Here is a scanned image of my signed/approved sign in sheet for the months of November-January. As you can see, I have consistently attended my shift.

3. Interpretive

•  This service learning/independent task has helped me to achieve my goals of answering my EQ  (What are the best ways to becoming a successful psychiatrist) because I am able to get a hands-on, as well as a spectators experience. Through service learning, I am able to use what I have learned from my extensive research and interviews, and incorporate it on my weekend shifts. One specific experience that has truly helped me get closer to a definitive answer to my EQ occurred on one of my volunteer days; A man, who was tied to his wheelchair, was admitted to the hospital by 4 paramedics who were trying to keep him contained. The man was in an absolute rage, screaming at the top of his lungs. After he was admitted, he was placed in a secured hospital bed which kept him strapped down. Nurses and Doctors expected him to be under the influence of PCP, but the man refused to take a urine test. The nurses and doctors seemed annoyed and rude making comments such as "kids, dont do drugs" After hours in his room, a psychiatrist was called in to do a simple evaluation. After 20 minutes alone with the patient, the psychiatrist was able to get the patient unstrapped and seated upright without any retaliation. The patient was speaking in a normal tone and he even took a urine test, followed by a handshake with the psychiatrist. 

 To me, this was an example of a successful psychiatrist. Through a clinical, yet intimate evaluation, the psychiatrist did his job in a swift and effective manner. The psychiatrist didn't talk down to the patient, but rather, he treated him as an actual human being. I think that the experience i gained just on that day, has helped me to achieve an answer to my EQ.

Blog #14: Presentation 2 Rough Draft.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qjCP78AcM6tml7ytEBQ6UkGK0wxaHH2rv6ZdaMwFS7g/edit

Blog #13: Answer 1

 EQ: What are the best ways to becoming a successful psychiatrist?


1) What is answer 1 to your EQ? Be specific in your answer and write it like a thesis statement.


Always conduct your business with a sense of empathy, humbleness, and humility–professionally and personally.


2) What possible evidence do you have to support this answer?


-Through my interviews, I  was able to come much closer to answering my EQ. I learned from my interview with Dr. Owen K Tsuchiya that “It’s [psychiatry] uniquely personal and yet detached; it’s a curious balance." My service learning mentor chose the field of psychiatry because it is such a humanistic and personal sub-specialty of medicine. He explained to me that in order to succeed in psychiatry, you can't treat your patient from a strictly scientific point of view; you must be empathetic to truly understand a mental illness.


-Through my endeavors in my service learning and research, I took great strides towards answering my EQ. I learned that a successful psychiatrist should have awareness that a psychiatric diagnosis is the most unique way of diagnosis because it is so subjective -- there is no definitive diagnostic blood or imaging (CT scan, MRI, etc) test that can confirm a diagnosis.  Knowing this, a psychiatrist should always know that no matter how confident they are of their initial diagnosis of a patient, the diagnosis will always be provisional and subject to change. You must also be able to consider the fact that many common treatment don’t really suit a particular patient.

Personal humility, I have learned, is practiced when a psychiatrist approaches patient with the constant awareness that the patient, even in his worst stage of mental illness, is an equal to him as a human being. "That but for an accident of birth in a family with different genetic risks, and different social, economic or cultural background, he could very well be suffering from any of the illnesses that afflict his patients."

3. What source(s) did you find this evidence and/or answer?

Service learning at Kaiser LAMC and with Psychiatrist Owen Tsuchiya, and interviews with Dr. Shahin and Dr. Tsuchiya.

 

Blog #12: Service Learning

Q:Where are you working for your service learning?

A: For my service learning I am working at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center: Emergency Room. The head honcho in charge of my service learning is:

 

Kathy McIntire

Director, Volunteer & Chaplain Services

Kaiser Permanente, LAMC

Q: What is your contact?

A: Phone: 323.783.8991

Q: Services performed?

A: For my service learning I shadow doctors who do their rounds in the Emergency Room. So I basically follow them as they go from room-to-room. By shadowing these professionals, i learn many things such as medical procedures, techniques when dealing with patients, and I am even allowed to do hands on medical assistance since i received my basic first aid training from Red Cross. That means that I am allowed to take blood pressure and blood oxygen, place EKG machines on patients (and decipher the patients condition), and I help with bandaging. I watch as Doctors and nurses do surgical procedures in the ER (I have seen 4 penile catheters being inserted), and i learn how and why each procedure is done. Other than that, I chat with doctors, nurses, and EMT's and get a basic feel of the medical and helping profession.

ESLR Blog

Through this senior project, I believe I have grown significantly on many levels. The skills that I have been gained can be described through Ipoly's ESSLR's listed below.

1) Effective learner: Through my 12th grade project, I have demonstrated great skills in learning effectively. I had to take responsibility for my own personal learning such as good quality research, finding a service learning mentor, and learning independently for the sake of bettering my understanding for the world around me.

2) Effective communicator: Through senior project, I have bettered myself in the ways of communication. From my 5 minute presentation to my two different interviews with professional, I have gained valuable skills in terms of being an effective communicator.

Blog #11: Third Interview Questions

1) What form of treatment is best in the treatment of patients with mental illness?  
2) "What are the best ways to becoming a successful psychiatrist?" (EQ)
3) What is a "rough day at work" for you?
4)What influenced you to become a psychiatrist?
5)What makes a bad psychiatrist?
6) Do you need above average "people skills" in order to succeed as a psychiatrist?
7) Can you acquire or improve these skills over time through training or practice?
8) Do you believe that the pharmaceutical industry is a corrupt, capitalist industry?
9) What do you say to those that say that psychiatrists are just "pill pushers?"
10) Do you treat a certain demographic of patients?