As clear as black and white.

A similarity of a podcast and printed essay is that both have a finalized written version in that the printed essay is changed multiple times as is a podcast script. One very noticeable difference is that you can affect the listener of a podcast by your tone of voice, whereas a person might not get the same attitude you intended as they read your essay. You can affect a listener more by your tone of voice than you can by simply allowing them to read something you’ve written unless they know you to the point that they know your stance on that subject.

Who knows what a podcast is?

The topic I would like to do my podcast on is people’s misconceptions about being sick. Sometimes they think they just have a cold when in fact they could and sometimes do have something much more serious than just a common cold.  The main point would be that in today’s world, regardless of what you think you have or what your friends tell you, you need to go to the doctor. Sometimes what you think is a stomach virus can be diverticulitis. Or your chest cold could be an allergic reaction to dust or mold now that the crops are being harvested across the area.  Also, many illnesses that were deemed incurable 10 or 15 years ago are now being caught very early and most times are cured because they were detected early enough that something could be done. This podcast would be a great complement to my Webtext as we all thought my friend just had a simple chest cold, or maybe another collapsed lung. But after his x-ray, that’s when he began his trip down a road he would never return from. Also, kids are checked for so many things while they’re young, like scoliosis, and they are immediately put on a course of treatment to minimize the negative effects of scoliosis.

It's not the computer, it's user error.

We discussed a few points such as inserting a text box into my draft as a place to put a summary of the broader text of my friend's ordeal that would help the reader get a little background as to what led me to write about my topic that is the divide in hospital care. We also talked about my open ended questions in my introduction, and the risks associated with them.

I thought the main point of my draft was clear but perhaps it can be clarified a bit more. I tried not to shove too many facts into the paper, but it seems that after reading the peer review I may need to incorporate some more. I also need to finish the section about my mom and her recent treatment she received at Northwestern in Chicago.

The instructor feedback helped by giving me ideas on how to modify my draft to hammer out some of the sticking points as well as answer the questions I had about the positioning of my firsthand account in regard to my friend and his sickness. And the peer review helped me by seeing that the very account I put in about my friend is more useful than I had expected it to be.

Histo-what?

In EBSCOhost, I found an article talking about histoplasmosis(Saccente, 2003), which is what my friend ended up passing away from that I referenced in my 500 Word Draft. It also has MRI pictures of  patient's brain, only my friend's brain looked much worse.

Outside of this reference, I had some problems finding useful articles. I tried to find one that gave a detailed explination of what histoplasmosis was, but the only place I could find one was Webmd.com. I think it's important to be able to portray the full picture when referencing what can be a serious medical condition in today's society.

Works Cited:

Saccente, M. M. (2003, April). Cerebral Histoplasmosis in the Azole Era: Report of Four Cases and Review. Retrieved October 4, 2010, from http://lib-proxy.calumet.purdue.edu:2461/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=107&sid=8a258dab-4aa6-4d37-b4b5-a1b0d0ba871b%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=10230097

Oh Google Scholar, where have you been.

I looked in Google Scholar for some  more information on how many people had health insurance as well as how many people will get cancer in a given year. The first article I read was an article that provided information about the American Cancer Society’s estimates for the number of new cancer cases in the United States for that year. It shows incidences of cancer by race, site, and ethnicity. It also talked about new cancers cases decreasing since 1990 in men and 1991 in women (Ahmedin Jemal, 2009). It raises the following question, Can this trend be linked to the advances in both medical technology and the understanding the signs of cancer?

The second article I read dealt with income, poverty and health insurance coverage throughout the United States. It provided statistics for specific races in terms of income and number of people in poverty. It also showed the number of people with private insurance plans and those on some form of government insurance, be it Medicare, Military, or Medicaid, as well as those with no insurance. It also gave percentages for races with some insurance or none at all. (DeNavas-Walt, 2010) It raises the question of whether or not President Obama’s healthcare reform will really help or hurt Americans.

Ahmedin Jemal, R. S. (2009, May 27). Cancer Statistics, 2009. Retrieved October 3, 2010, from CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians: http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/4/225

DeNavas-Walt, C. (2010). Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States(2005). DIANE Publishing.