Course Reflection

After taking huge lecture after huge lecture with old, boring professors, it was unique to have a class with under 20 people. I loved having the ability to speak up and be heard. The discussions were always respectful, and it was always interesting to hear everybody's differing points of view. I was also impressed that the group projects went as smoothly as they did.

This semester, I learned a lot about writing, and my own writing style was greatly improved. I ended up becoming very passionate about my paper topic, health insurance, even after spending an infinite number of hours researching it. I am looking forward to Jr. English (which is usually required by med schools, even if you place out of it) so that I can continue to improve my ability to write, which is a skill that is crucial for any professional. Thanks everyone!
-John Wallis

The Pura Principle

I liked this story a lot. All different types of people have a lot to say, but not everybody is a formal college-educated author. It is unique to hear such an emotional story come from such a colloquial writer. You would think that the reader wouldn't be able to take such a writer seriously, but I feel like the cursing and trash talk is something that many people can relate to. Because of this, it helps the reader connect with this specific illness narrative.

My favorite aspect of the story is how Rafa is sick, making it easy to feel sorry for him, but that he is an extremely unique character. Most writers glorify the sick, but this author included every flaw of his brother. Even though he showed that he loved his brother, sometimes it seemed as though he didn't like Rafa. I really enjoyed hearing such a unique perspective on such a common topic as cancer.

Waltz with Bashir

The scene that stood out to me the most in Waltz with Bashir was when the soldier ran into the line of fire and started dancing with his weapon. Based on the title, this was a critical point in the film, and it was done extremely tastefully. I have not seen many serious films that use animation, but this scene would not have worked any other way. The mixture between dancing and shooting was both abstract and perplexing. After getting angry enough to threaten his own friend, why did he suddenly start dancing? I especially loved the points where I couldn't tell whether he was trying to waltz or just evade the shower of bullets.

I was surprised that an animated film could portray the emotions and depth that it did. Usually animation seems to be used for humor. The one problem was that I was unable to identify people when they were showed at various ages. Other than that, the fluidity of the waltz showed me that animation can be extremely effective in portraying emotional imagery.

4 Annotations

1. Zeleny, Jeff. "Romney to Obama: 'Why Didn't You Call Me?'" Nytimes.com. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .
This article said that President Obama has considered the health care law in Massachusetts passed by Mitt Romney as the model for the national plan. In response, Mitt Romney said that he disagreed with Obama's plan. He even said that had Obama called him, he "would have told him, 'What you're doing, Mr. President, is going to bankrupt us."

2. Shear, Michael D. "Boehner, McConnell Push Full Assault on Health Care Law." Nytimes.com. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .
In both an article and a video, House Speaker John Boehner and Republican leader Mitch McConnell promise that they will continue pursuing "full repeal" of Obama's health care law. In response, President Obama put out a video in which he was talking to a person who benefited from the fact that the health care bill raised the age that kids can be on their parents health insurance.

3. "On Second Thought." Editorial. Nytimes.com. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
"A federal district judge in Florida backed down, as he should have, from his effort to bully the Obama administration into halting implementation of the new health care reforms even before the issue of the law’s constitutionality is resolved by higher courts."

4. Eliminating Waste in Medicare Advantage Will Not Affect Benefits. The White House. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .
In this video: "Mike Hash of the White House Office of Health Reform gets into deeper detail on how reform would eliminate wasteful subsidies to insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program, without hurting benefits or care and leaving the trust fund intact. To the contrary, it will strengthen Medicare's long-term stability and save seniors money."

5. Davenport, Jim. "Appeals Court Speeds up Health Overhaul Appeal." Yahoo! News. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .
This article talked about how a federal appeals court has decided that they are going to speed up the timetable for the consideration of a Florida judge's ruling that Obama's health care bill is unconstitutional.

Research #1

1. Cutler, David M. and Zeckhauser, Richard J. Handbook of Health Economics, Volume 1. Elsevier Science, 2000.

(I could not find the city where it was published)

Pages 576-577: Moral hazard is essentially the difference in mindset when people know that they can buy something without paying in full. This applies to health care because people with health insurance will use the health care system more as long as it is covered under their insurance. They also may not take care of themselves quite as well because they know that they can just go to the doctor. On the other hand, somebody without insurance may want to take very good care of themselves to make sure that they don't have to pay for medical care. People with insurance will portray overall riskier behavior.

"Optimal insurance plans would pay for treatment only if the individual would have

chosen the same treatment had he borne the full bill"

Page 607: Adverse selection is essentially the differences in insurance costs and options. This becomes a problem because sick people that need more insurance will have to buy more generous plans, causing healthier people to avoid these risky plans. Also, healthy people may not feel the need for insurance. This means that the only people buying insurance are the people that are the most costly to insure.

2. Barnett, Randy E. "Is Health-Care Reform Constitutional?" The Washington Post, 21 March. 2010. Web. 3 March. 2011.

-9th and 10th Amendments

-Commerce Clause

-"...never before has it (Congress) used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company."

John Q

The scene in which Ms. Payne and Dr. Turner were first telling the Archibalds that their son was very ill was a great example of rhetorical appeals.

First, there is of course pathos because everybody is sympathetic towards a family finding out that their loved one is fatally sick. The acting in this scene by both Denzel Washington and Kimberly Elise was sensational. They captured not only their love and concern for their son, but also a seemingly real love for each other.

Second, there is ethos. Dr. Turner shows his competence as a heart surgeon through his use of medical jargon as if it is common terminology. With this, he also shows a lack of initial compassion towards the Archibalds' predicament because he does not even want to take the time to explain exactly what is going on in their son's body.

Finally, the writers used logos to try to show how conniving Ms. Payne was. She makes the argument that they should let their son die without surgery because the surgery could kill him. In no way does this make sense because if they do nothing he essentially has a 0% chance of surviving, and only through surgery do these odds increase. She was trying to outsmart the humble parents into not trying to have the expensive surgery.

This whole movie used the rhetorical appeals to make the audience feel strong emotions throughout. I felt angry at the system, which made me excited to write my paper on health insurance.

Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, the camera zoomed in for several close-ups of Tom Hanks in which he made subtle gestures or faces that ended up being crucial to the movie. In the end, I found each of these to symbolize the 5 stages of grief that a patient (or people close to that patient) go through when they find out that they are going to die.

1. Anger: After being turned down by the tenth lawyer, there is a close-up of Andrew Beckett, standing in the doorway looking angry and hopeless.

2. Denial: When Beckett and Miguel are talking about death for the first time, Miguel says that maybe Andrew should start planning his own memorial. Tom Hanks looks extremely surprised, then shakes his head and says the word "NO." It is then that they go to a costume party.

3. Bargaining: When talking about his will with Miller, Beckett makes it clear that he wants a lot of his money to go to charity. This is like a last attempt to gain some good karma.

4. Depression: Out of nowhere, Andrew gets extremely emotional when listening to La Mamma Morta by Maria Callas. He cries and feels the weight of his situation. He is clearly not yet ready to die.

5. Acceptance: While lying in his hospital bed, Beckett blatantly tells Miguel, "I'm ready." This is the definition of the acceptance that every person hopes to achieve right before they die.

One thing in the movie that surprised me was that Beckett's family was picture-perfect throughout. They were extremely supportive of his partnership with Miguel as well as his plight with AIDS. In reality, many AIDS patients were disowned because of their homosexuality. I am still curious as to why the creators of the film made his family life flawless.

Final Paper Topic

For my Experience and Other Evidence paper, I will write about health insurance. As an EMT, I first experienced a man denying my care because he did not have insurance and could not afford the bills. As a hopeful doctor, I feel as though this issue will have a big impact on my life. Thus, I am excited to learn more about it.

I want to compare the American system of healthcare and the rest of the world's. I would like to include all of the recent progress made, especially about the mandate for everyone to have health insurance. Is a mandate even constitutional? Without a mandate, isn't anybody that gets sick without insurance a burden to the rest of society? How will the recent changes to the system effect the medical field, including costs of operations, paychecks of the employees, and the burden/responsibility on the government to help people? I plan to use as many factual statistics as I can to enforce whatever argument I choose to make.

Experience and Other Evidence Possible Topics

1. Stem cell research: One of my best friends had leukemia in high school, and another one of my close friends passed away from brain/spinal chord cancer. I would like to research stem cells and the controversy of why people are against using them to treat/cure diseases. I believe that this would be a great way to educate myself as to the possible treatments that stem cell research may provide. I will be able to relate stem cells to the possibility of having aided my friends in their recoveries. I think that all students of biology or medicine will be interested.

2. As an EMT, I was trained in the laws that regulate LIABILITY in the healthcare field. I am a hopeful doctor, and it is common knowledge that the healthcare system is in disarray. I will research the possible solutions to the fact that doctors are being sued irresponsibly. I think I can find a correlation in the trends in the number of people interested in science and medicine. My audience will be anybody interested in going into a medical field.

3. Because I am a hopeful doctor, the issue of (universal) health insurance is very important to me. Unfortunately, I feel as though I have slacked on understanding the specifics of the current debate. I think that this paper would be a great way to educate myself. One day, I think that this argument will be crucial to my paycheck and my treatment of patients. I can relate my EMT experiences with impoverished patients that denied care due to insufficient health insurance. My audience is anybody that will ever get sick, as well as anybody that might want to go into a medical field.

Response to Tricksters and Truthtellers

I love the respect that Frank shows for the value of literature and writing as a therapy. To me, this article was more about storytelling than it was about illness. It was about how every person can find value in hearing another person's story. Stories of illness are especially important, because they humanize the patient. Many patients' lives revolve around their current T-cell count or white blood cell count, and by hearing others' stories, their lives can continue.

I was moved by some of Frank's more deep and meaningful lines. One that I loved was "every heartbeat is hope for the next one," which is a great way of saying that as long as the heart beats, there is always hope. Another great line was "illness threatens physically, and it threatens existentially and spiritually. Eventually...that threat can morph into a kind of liberation." To me, this means that illness is so fearful because it threatens life, which is the most important thing in the world. This threat can make somebody feel as though there is nothing left to fear once their life is on the verge of being taken. Overall, this was a very well written and touching article.

Confessional Writing

There is a definite distinction between an apology and a confession. Both show remorse, but only in an apology do you seek external forgiveness. A confession, by contrast, is an attempt to allow yourself to make peace with whatever you did and forgive yourself. When somebody goes to a religious confession, they are looking for the priest to absolve their own guilt under the guise of seeking God's forgiveness.

I believe that there are a lot of times where confession is selfish. Ignorance is bliss. If somebody doesn't know something, then informing them just to get rid of your own guilt is not the right thing to do. People say that honesty is always right, but being honest just to make yourself feel better is wrong. Confession is only the right thing to do if it will help both parties (the confesseé and the confessor)

In situations such as the medical malpractice, it rarely helps anybody to confess their mistakes after the fact. The patient will lose confidence in their doctor and the doctor could get sued or lose their medical license. For a physician to confess through his writing to having sewed a patient's earlobe to the bed was beneficial to nobody.

Writing Autobiography

Hello, I'm John, the only student ever to have prolonged ENGL101 until the second semester of sophomore year.

My writing identity is defined by the fact that my mom is an editor for the New York Times. Since I first learned the ABC's, she has been actively trying to improve my writing. The NY Times writes as simply as possible to maximize the readers' comprehension and does not waste page space with any unnecessary descriptions. Because of this, I write very simply and factually, but I have always struggled with creative and abstract writing. In this class, I strive to improve my descriptive and creative writing.

Despite these shortcomings, I have always enjoyed writing. Unfortunately, I have done almost none of it in college. I am confident that this class will help me to practice and improve the way that I write!