Hiatus

I haven't been able to volunteer for the past two weeks because I was out of town during Spring Break and had to leave for the Tri-Beta regional conference last Friday. Unfortunately, San Jose is closed for Easter break this Friday, but hopefully I will be able to volunteer on Wednesday afternoon.

In other news, the Tri-Beta regional conference went really well. The drive up there took 6 hours during Friday rush hour in Houston and Dallas but only 4 1/2 hours coming back. Shh, I tend to speed...

I gave my chapter presentation on the activities of the Nu Beta Chapter at UST for the past year. Going in, I had only heard that many other small schools were avidly involved in Tri-Beta, so I thought every other chapter would blow us out of the water. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we're one of the most active and productive chapters.

April is going to be one incredibly hectic month, so we'll see how much time I have to actually volunteer and blog. One thing that has been on my mind is how San Jose Clinic is reacting to all the health care reform going on. Typically, negative reactions have come from the right-winged, upper classes. San Jose Clinic though caters to the uninsured and low-income patients, so I was curious as to whether they are having a very positive reaction to the extension of coverage to roughly 32 million more Americans and the penalties involved for not having health insurance. I'll have to ask Sam about this next time I see her.

Another Random Musing

I was not able to volunteer on Friday because taking pictures of our transfections took much longer than expected. It actually took up almost the entire time I usually go to volunteer, so I decided to head home since I already had plans for that evening. However, as always, I constantly have random musings about health care, and I thought I'd make today's blog entry lab-themed due to the aforementioned circumstances.

With health care's status quo, there is a struggle between the morality of managed care and defensive medicine. Also called the "shotgun approach" to diagnosis, defensive medicine caters more toward the middle class and upper economic, insured brackets. Doctors issue an extraneous amount of lab tests and scans in order to remove any legal liability of neglect should an incorrect diagnosis occur.

On the other end of the spectrum, managed care happens mostly with HMO's when insurance companies and doctors are looking to save as much money as possible and issue the minimum amount of lab tests and scans. There is also usually a financial incentive for the doctor if they save money by "undertreating." Sometimes, this results in cutting corners by outrightly refusing some test the doctor may deem "unnecessary" at the moment.

Where in this range does an underserved institution like San Jose Clinic stand? The majority of their patients do not have insurance. Hence, that is why they are a charitable institution catering to the underserved and uninsured. However, as a doctor volunteering one's time at the clinic, how does this affect what tests you recommend to the patient? Do you err on the side of caution and more defensive-type medicine, or do you only inform only about tests within the financial reach of the patient? What can be done should a low-income, uninsured patient require an expensive procedure? Do the doctors and administration at San Jose take the time to petition for lowering the cost of costly medical procedures?

Medicine faces an infinite number of moral quandaries in its practice, and San Jose Clinic and other institutions of that type have their own sector of medical ethics to contend with. It's the side of the ethical debate you don't hear much about, and it takes musings like this to actually stand up and take notice of that exact lack of attention.

Day 3

It's been a hectic week, so this post is a bit late in coming. Being a second semester senior is no picnic, but the glorious end is near! =)

Anyways, last Friday, Rachel Chacko and I were assigned again to several different tasks that we carried out in the volunteer office on the first floor. First, we had to type up several documents of instructions for San Jose Clinic to be put on the database. Mine were specifically about bleach baths, the application of retinol A, and how to care for skin after blistering agents are used. Since Rachel and I are both fast typers, this task was completed rather quickly.

Our next task took us on a journey back to our childhood as we had to prepare little coloring bags for kids for Easter at San Jose. We had to put three crayons in each of seventy bags, and we had to cut out paper butterflies and lady bugs for them to color in. A tongue depressor and either a butterfly or a lady bug were put into the bag, and the child would glue the bug on the end of the tongue depressor. As a child, I always preferred colored pencils. They were just neater and easier to color with. I had the technique down where you do the dark, bold outline and shade in the shape lightly. It worked wonders on my geography maps in high school.

The last random task made it feel like Christmas. We were given a box of children's books that were wrapped and donated to San Jose for Christmas, and our task was to unwrap them so that they could be wrapped again in different paper for Easter to be given to children. It was actually fun just opening the presents and see what book was inside because many of them took us back to our childhood. I was definitely a voracious reader as a child, always carrying a book everywhere I went. I read while I ate, rode in the car, went grocery shopping, ran on the elliptical machine, etc.

Definitely a day of reconnecting with our youth, it was another week of small tasks for San Jose. However, without volunteer help, I wonder how they could accomplish all that we contribute to along with all of their other more prominent work. Every little bit counts, and that's what matters.