Hello everybody!
Sorry that I haven't updated my blog in a while. School has been taking up almost all of my time and I completely forgot about this little piece of the internet. Now that the school year is winding down, I think I can spare a few minutes.
In my last post I was desperately working on a paper. As it turns out I changed my paper topic because I was not comfortable with the topic of HIV/AIDS. It's not like I don't want to write about it due to the taboo nature of the disease, I just felt that I could write a better paper on Stroke than AIDS. In the end I'm happy with my decision because I managed to do well on my paper.
Speaking of good marks, it looks like I'm on a role! I've been getting B+'s and A's across the board. The term started slow and is getting better and better. Thank you to who ever is looking out for me and praying for me. Couldn't have done it without you.
Two more weeks and I will be free for another summer and I can finally put the hardest year of nursing behind me :)
Friday 30 March 2012
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Medical diagnosis
My prof has assigned a term paper and I need your help! Everyone in my class has been given a unique case study about a person who has just been admitted to a hospital. It turns out that this person needs a medical diagnosis... and it's up to us to figure out what chronic illness he or she might have. I think I have an idea what it might be, but it would be nice to get a second opinion. Can you help me?
Here's the case study:
"Mr. Madison, 38 years of age, went to the emergency department of a major urban medical center three weeks after being discharged from the medical center for treatment of toxoplasmosis. Currently unemployed, he has been living with his partner for the past two years. The admission nursing history was obtained from his partner as it was difficult for Mr. Madison to speak. Before he became too fatigued to work, he was a carpenter/electrician. He occasionally used alcohol, but was otherwise drug-free.
Mr. Madison’s came to the hospital because he had difficulty swallowing and a sore throat. He had more difficulty swallowing cold liquids than hot ones and complained of a burning chest pain while swallowing. His cough was productive of clear sputum, and cultures showed that he had Pneumocystis carinii. He is 5ft 6 in tall and weighs 53.6kg. He also had loose stools for several days. His temperature was 37oC, heart rate 120 beats per minute, respiratory rate 24, and blood pressure 120/78mm Hg. His lungs were clear to auscultation and he had erythematous ulcerations on his tonsillar fossa and under his tongue."
Here's the case study:
"Mr. Madison, 38 years of age, went to the emergency department of a major urban medical center three weeks after being discharged from the medical center for treatment of toxoplasmosis. Currently unemployed, he has been living with his partner for the past two years. The admission nursing history was obtained from his partner as it was difficult for Mr. Madison to speak. Before he became too fatigued to work, he was a carpenter/electrician. He occasionally used alcohol, but was otherwise drug-free.
Mr. Madison’s came to the hospital because he had difficulty swallowing and a sore throat. He had more difficulty swallowing cold liquids than hot ones and complained of a burning chest pain while swallowing. His cough was productive of clear sputum, and cultures showed that he had Pneumocystis carinii. He is 5ft 6 in tall and weighs 53.6kg. He also had loose stools for several days. His temperature was 37oC, heart rate 120 beats per minute, respiratory rate 24, and blood pressure 120/78mm Hg. His lungs were clear to auscultation and he had erythematous ulcerations on his tonsillar fossa and under his tongue."
Tuesday 10 January 2012
Saturday 7 January 2012
Peronality test
The other day Hoang asked me to do a personality test. I'm skeptical when it comes to these things. In my experience they are usually inaccurate but the results of this test are quite revealing. According to Myers-Briggs personality test, I am a "Counselor" and my personality type is INFJ (Idealist). Hoang is a "Mastermind" Rationalist... go figure :P
I would love to hear whether or not you believe the characteristics described below are an accurate description of my personality.
________________________________________________________________________
"INFJs are conscientious and value-driven. They seek meaning in relationships, ideas, and events, with an eye toward better understanding themselves and others. Using their intuitive skills, they develop a clear and confident vision, which they then set out to execute, aiming to better the lives of others. Like their INTJ counterparts, INFJs regard problems as opportunities to design and implement creative solutions.
INFJs are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Although very independent, INFJs are intensely interested in the well-being of others. INFJs prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.
INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them. Nevertheless, they are congenial in their interactions, and perceptive of the emotions of others. Generally well-liked by their peers, they may often be considered close friends and confidants by most other types. However, they are guarded in expressing their own feelings, especially to new people, and so tend to establish close relationships slowly. INFJs tend to be easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions. INFJs may "silently withdraw as a way of setting limits", rather than expressing their wounded feelings—a behavior that may leave others confused and upset.
INFJs tend to be sensitive, quiet leaders with a great depth of personality. They are intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves. They have an orderly view toward the world, but are internally arranged in a complex way that only they can understand. Abstract in communicating, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. With a natural affinity for art, INFJs tend to be creative and easily inspired. Yet they may also do well in the sciences, aided by their intuition."
I would love to hear whether or not you believe the characteristics described below are an accurate description of my personality.
________________________________________________________________________
"INFJs are conscientious and value-driven. They seek meaning in relationships, ideas, and events, with an eye toward better understanding themselves and others. Using their intuitive skills, they develop a clear and confident vision, which they then set out to execute, aiming to better the lives of others. Like their INTJ counterparts, INFJs regard problems as opportunities to design and implement creative solutions.
INFJs are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Although very independent, INFJs are intensely interested in the well-being of others. INFJs prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.
INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them. Nevertheless, they are congenial in their interactions, and perceptive of the emotions of others. Generally well-liked by their peers, they may often be considered close friends and confidants by most other types. However, they are guarded in expressing their own feelings, especially to new people, and so tend to establish close relationships slowly. INFJs tend to be easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions. INFJs may "silently withdraw as a way of setting limits", rather than expressing their wounded feelings—a behavior that may leave others confused and upset.
INFJs tend to be sensitive, quiet leaders with a great depth of personality. They are intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves. They have an orderly view toward the world, but are internally arranged in a complex way that only they can understand. Abstract in communicating, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. With a natural affinity for art, INFJs tend to be creative and easily inspired. Yet they may also do well in the sciences, aided by their intuition."
Thursday 8 December 2011
Final exams
My final Restoration exam is tomorrow!!!
I've been studying all week. Hope it was worth it.
Wish me luck!
I've been studying all week. Hope it was worth it.
Wish me luck!
Wednesday 7 December 2011
Interesting article
Is it still wrong if another culture says it is right? A teacher’s surprising discovery
By: Denyse O'Leary
Recently, a Canadian high school teacher broke the silence about where cultural relativism really leads.
When we celebrate “diversity,” what exactly are we celebrating?
We are told that it means that everyone will accept people of other faiths and sexualities. But what can that mean when it is unpacked?
In “Moments of startling clarity: Moral education programming in Ontario today,”* Stephen L. Anderson recounts what happened when he tried to show students what can happen to women in a culture with no tradition of treating women as if they were fellow human beings with men:
I was teaching my senior Philosophy class. We had just finished a unit on Metaphysics and were about to get into Ethics, the philosophy of how we make moral judgments. The school had also just had several social-justice-type assemblies—multiculturalism, women’s rights, anti-violence and gay acceptance. So there was no shortage of reference points from which to begin.
I decided to open by simply displaying, without comment, the photo of Bibi Aisha. Aisha was the Afghani teenager who was forced into an abusive marriage with a Taliban fighter, who abused her and kept her with his animals. When she attempted to flee, her family caught her, hacked off her nose and ears, and left her for dead in the mountains. After crawling to her grandfather’s house, she was saved by a nearby American hospital. I felt quite sure that my students, seeing the suffering of this poor girl of their own age, would have a clear ethical reaction, from which we could build toward more difficult cases.
The picture is horrific. Aisha’s beautiful eyes stare hauntingly back at you above the mangled hole that was once her nose. Some of my students could not even raise their eyes to look at it. I could see that many were experiencing deep emotions.
But I was not prepared for their reaction.
I had expected strong aversion; but that’s not what I got. Instead, they became confused. They seemed not to know what to think. They spoke timorously, afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize any situation originating in a different culture.
They said, “Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.” One student said, “I don’t feel anything at all; I see lots of this kind of stuff .”
Another said (with no consciousness of self-contradiction), “It’s just wrong to judge other cultures.”
Anderson reflects,
While we may hope some are capable of bridging the gap between principled morality and this ethically vacuous relativism, it is evident that a good many are not. For them, the overriding message is “never judge, never criticize, never take a position.”
One reason might be this: For thousands of years, most thinkers assumed that virtue was something specific; it could be described, and could be distinguished from not-virtue (vice). Courage, for example, was a virtue—a cardinal virtue. Cowardice was a vice. One ought, they said, to aim for courage because it is intrinsically worthy, and avoid cowardice because it is intrinsically a disgrace. Those thinkers are—in the students’ terms—judgmental!
In recent decades, a new view has taken root. The new view is that courage and cowardice have no intrinsic reality. Neither does the classical virtue of justice or the vice of injustice. It all depends on how you feel about things, which in turn depends on your culture. That underlies the students’ inability to move from “I feel bad” to “This is wrong.”
One outcome has been the popular convention that all cultures are of equal value. If Afghan men see their treatment of women as just, then it must be so. We lack any legitimate basis for saying it isn’t. One common way of putting it is that our ancestors were bigoted imperialists who didn’t see the worth of other cultures.
How would a traditional philosopher respond to that? Well, if he believes that virtue and vice (right and wrong) exist in some sense, even as abstractions, he would likely say that most cultures excel in some virtues but not in others.
The Afghan culture, for example, excels in the virtue of courage; it produces many brave suicide bombers. But it falls behind in the virtue of justice, especially where women are concerned. The traditional philosopher would insist that this is an objective assessment, based on evidence, and that no one who makes it can properly be called a bigot.
A different culture may excel in justice, but fall behind in courage. That is a particularly unfortunate combination because people vaguely understand that when a woman is mutilated for running away from an abusive husband, a terrible wrong has been done. These students, after all, were not a Taliban mob, cheering the mutilators on. They do not speak up for fear of criticism for the one remaining sin—passing judgment. Again, from the traditional perspective, it is not bigotry to say that their cowardice is a vice. It is a vice.
The students could not go from their vague discomfort to a rational ethical conclusion because they have never learned traditional philosophy of ethics. Therefore, their objections have no force and, for all that they sense injustice, they will likely do very little good in the world. And the “accept everyone, accept everything” assemblies they attend unwittingly feed the problem: They learn to accept gay rights in North America and stoning gays in Afghanistan.
Theirs is an education to avoid at all costs.
From: http://thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2011/12/03/wrong-culture-right-teacher%E2%80%99s-surprising-discovery/
By: Denyse O'Leary
Recently, a Canadian high school teacher broke the silence about where cultural relativism really leads.
When we celebrate “diversity,” what exactly are we celebrating?
We are told that it means that everyone will accept people of other faiths and sexualities. But what can that mean when it is unpacked?
In “Moments of startling clarity: Moral education programming in Ontario today,”* Stephen L. Anderson recounts what happened when he tried to show students what can happen to women in a culture with no tradition of treating women as if they were fellow human beings with men:
I was teaching my senior Philosophy class. We had just finished a unit on Metaphysics and were about to get into Ethics, the philosophy of how we make moral judgments. The school had also just had several social-justice-type assemblies—multiculturalism, women’s rights, anti-violence and gay acceptance. So there was no shortage of reference points from which to begin.
I decided to open by simply displaying, without comment, the photo of Bibi Aisha. Aisha was the Afghani teenager who was forced into an abusive marriage with a Taliban fighter, who abused her and kept her with his animals. When she attempted to flee, her family caught her, hacked off her nose and ears, and left her for dead in the mountains. After crawling to her grandfather’s house, she was saved by a nearby American hospital. I felt quite sure that my students, seeing the suffering of this poor girl of their own age, would have a clear ethical reaction, from which we could build toward more difficult cases.
The picture is horrific. Aisha’s beautiful eyes stare hauntingly back at you above the mangled hole that was once her nose. Some of my students could not even raise their eyes to look at it. I could see that many were experiencing deep emotions.
But I was not prepared for their reaction.
I had expected strong aversion; but that’s not what I got. Instead, they became confused. They seemed not to know what to think. They spoke timorously, afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize any situation originating in a different culture.
They said, “Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.” One student said, “I don’t feel anything at all; I see lots of this kind of stuff .”
Another said (with no consciousness of self-contradiction), “It’s just wrong to judge other cultures.”
Anderson reflects,
While we may hope some are capable of bridging the gap between principled morality and this ethically vacuous relativism, it is evident that a good many are not. For them, the overriding message is “never judge, never criticize, never take a position.”
One reason might be this: For thousands of years, most thinkers assumed that virtue was something specific; it could be described, and could be distinguished from not-virtue (vice). Courage, for example, was a virtue—a cardinal virtue. Cowardice was a vice. One ought, they said, to aim for courage because it is intrinsically worthy, and avoid cowardice because it is intrinsically a disgrace. Those thinkers are—in the students’ terms—judgmental!
In recent decades, a new view has taken root. The new view is that courage and cowardice have no intrinsic reality. Neither does the classical virtue of justice or the vice of injustice. It all depends on how you feel about things, which in turn depends on your culture. That underlies the students’ inability to move from “I feel bad” to “This is wrong.”
One outcome has been the popular convention that all cultures are of equal value. If Afghan men see their treatment of women as just, then it must be so. We lack any legitimate basis for saying it isn’t. One common way of putting it is that our ancestors were bigoted imperialists who didn’t see the worth of other cultures.
How would a traditional philosopher respond to that? Well, if he believes that virtue and vice (right and wrong) exist in some sense, even as abstractions, he would likely say that most cultures excel in some virtues but not in others.
The Afghan culture, for example, excels in the virtue of courage; it produces many brave suicide bombers. But it falls behind in the virtue of justice, especially where women are concerned. The traditional philosopher would insist that this is an objective assessment, based on evidence, and that no one who makes it can properly be called a bigot.
A different culture may excel in justice, but fall behind in courage. That is a particularly unfortunate combination because people vaguely understand that when a woman is mutilated for running away from an abusive husband, a terrible wrong has been done. These students, after all, were not a Taliban mob, cheering the mutilators on. They do not speak up for fear of criticism for the one remaining sin—passing judgment. Again, from the traditional perspective, it is not bigotry to say that their cowardice is a vice. It is a vice.
The students could not go from their vague discomfort to a rational ethical conclusion because they have never learned traditional philosophy of ethics. Therefore, their objections have no force and, for all that they sense injustice, they will likely do very little good in the world. And the “accept everyone, accept everything” assemblies they attend unwittingly feed the problem: They learn to accept gay rights in North America and stoning gays in Afghanistan.
Theirs is an education to avoid at all costs.
From: http://thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2011/12/03/wrong-culture-right-teacher%E2%80%99s-surprising-discovery/
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