Over the break, I plan to research the question of how well our doctors are meeting the public's expectations. I have a pretty good idea of how to present this at the end. I'm going to make a survey that I'll pass out when we get back and gather a few video clips to make the presentation nicer. It's going to suck to have to blog all of it though. It's ridiculous that these breaks are intended to give students a chance to relax, and yet teachers give us more work than usual during them. No wonder why kids today are so stressed out and overly medicated. I understand not wasting the time for interviews in this particular class, but anything else is uncalled for. Okay, I'm done ranting. Here's a funny video I'm going to use in my presentation:

Coming Soon...

I've got a lot of research now on women in neurology, so I want to interview a male physician and get the other point of view. I have someone lined up, but before I contact him I want to have a substantial amount of things to talk about. The next step will be researching the question about medical profficiency. Once I have most of that covered, I'll set up a meeting to talk about both questions. I think I'm going to make another survey. This time it will actually serve a purpose, at least.

I was watching tv last night and found a show called "Married to Medicine". I was actually really excited because I thought it was going to be about strong, independent women doctors. The description said something about balancing home life with the hectic work schedule. I thought, "Yes. This is exactly what young girls need to see on tv. Something to aspire to." But I was so, so wrong. Instead, the first thing I see is a loud, obnoxious rich woman yelling at a group of other rich women. She was saying that she didn't want to "start any drama" and that everyone was trying to exclude her from some party. She wasn't a doctor; she was an unemployed, pampered doctor's wife. Her whole goal in life was to find a rich man to take care of her and buy her nice things. It was disgusting. And we wonder why there aren't more young women coming into the field of medicine. It's because they are told by the media to be housewives instead of proffesionals. It really pisses me off.

I've been trying to find conferences about women in medicine. A lot of medical colleges hold them, but they've passed by now. There was even one on Friday that I just missed! I'm going to have to watch them on youtube instead, but I can't do that in school. After that... I don't know. Interviews, I guess. I'm a bit stuck right now. I want to get a detailed picture of this issue, but I don't know what else I can do. I'm going to see where the videos lead me.

Mr. Shtino lent me a scifi book last week and I read one story about a neuroscientist. It's called "Flowers for Algernon." In the story, a mentally handicapped man in his late 30's is chosen for a medical experiment that triples his inteligence. It is implied that some type of brain surgery is preformed, but they don't go into details. As his IQ rises, he learns that his friends have been abusing him and he was treated like a worthless fool. He eventually becomes more intelligent than the doctors that preformed the study. He realizes that the effects are only temporary and is terrified of returning to his previous state. When he does, it devastates him. This is an important concept to keep in mind when discussing neurological testing because doctors don't always understand the impact of their work. When I start to research the future of neurology, I should try to think of the unanticipated consequences that will result from each technology.

I went to the doctor's office the other day and got a quote from a female physician. Besides that, I've been researching more for the women in neuroscience question and I think I'm set for now. My next task is to get some interviews to back it up. The problem is that I don't want to conduct an entire interview for only one set of questions. I'm going to have to make up a bunch of sub-questions that a person could answer in case their first response is, "No, I don't see too much discrimination in the workplace." That will happen this weekend hopefully. I"ll probably start it on Monday, though, because I'll be doing an english essay all weekend. Thanks a lot Shtino :P

So I met with Mrs. Repasy and we worked out how I'm tying the research questions into a presentation. To clarify, question #1 is going to introduce the topic of Neurology and set the stage for later discussions. Questions #2 and 3 will give people and idea about the field of Neurology today. The last question will apply Neuroscience to people everywhere and show them what to expect in the future..... you know what I just noticed? No matter how many times I do it, I always forget that Neurology and Neuroscience shouldn't be capitalized. It's like a freudian slip or something.