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.