Author Archives: cao63

An American Epidemic

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Elisabeth Rosenthal is the author of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It. A medical doctor, she currently serves as the editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News (KHN) in 2016, the independent foundation-funded reporting project focusing on health and health policy news. Some of her accomplishments: She spent 22 years as a correspondent at the New York Times, where she covered a variety of beats from healthcare to the environment to reporter in the Beijing bureau, when in China she covered SARs, bird flu and the emergence of HIV/AIDS in rural areas, she is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, and briefly practiced medicine in a New York City emergency room before turning to a profession to journalism.

Dr. Rosenthal talked about the state of medical care in the United States in which visits to hospitals are billed at hundreds of dollars. This is because now consumerism has mixed with the medical industry. She elaborates on how drugs that were inexpensive are now sky-rocketing in prices. For example, antibiotics in the 90s used to be about $10. In 2007, these same antibiotics cost about $100. In the United States, medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy.

In our contemporary society, people are deprived of quality medical care due to circumstances that are hard for them to control. These circumstances such as socioeconomic status, resources, and access to healthcare leave a lot of the population’s health in jeopardy. However, when people are able to get to healthcare facilities especially super utilizers they may not be able to afford their medical bills. Super utilizers follow the 5-50 rule which means that even though they are 5% of the population accounting for 50% of the medical costs of the population in the United States. There should be an alternative method to help not only these people but for everyone else deprived of healthcare. I guess it’s up to our generation.

GMOs

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Genetically modified organic (GMO) foods are a debated topic in the food and consumer industry. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA ) has run tests on these GMOs and have concluded that they are unlikely to present risks on human health. They have passed all safety assessments.

Presently, AquaBounty Technologies, which is a company in Maynard, Massachusetts, has developed a GMO salmon that has sold product to customers in Canada. Now they want to make the move to the market in the U.S. but it is about how consumers would react to it.

Their discovery was very risky, this is considering that it almost put them out of business on several occasions. They started in 1989, where scientists gave a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and gave it to the ocean pout allowing the fish to have a continuous low level of growth hormone.

In the table talk discussing this topic, I felt like one thing that effects consumer acceptance in not only GMO fish but other GMO products would be ignorance. I feel like we as Americans are hesitant to try new things because to the average person they may feel like scientists are tampering with their food. For example, in the article, Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski called AquaBounty’s salmon “fake fish”.  Not only can this hurt the product, but Americans will continue to be fickle about trying the product.

Also, we had a debate on whether or not GMO products should be labeled as such or not. I said that they should but also should have a difference in price between hem and their non-GMO counterpart. I feel like being honest with what is going on with food is how they will get the consumer’s trust.

Massage Stress Reliever

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As a second year Rose Scholar, I am very satisfied that there was an activity that was geared towards relieving us students of stress. Thank you to GRF Sara for putting this on. I remember last semester, that there was a table talk in which we talked about the mental health of students on campus. I discussed how students are so worried about academic and career related things, that they really do not have time. I feel that this was a step in the right direction, people have time for ten minutes.

With the massage itself, my masseuse Tracey was very friendly and I was basically able to take a ten minute nap, because of how comfortable it was. After the massage, I was loose and relaxed for the rest of the day. It was the best feeling, I felt in a long time.

So I think we as a student population need to give ourselves more credit than we think and treat ourselves every once in a while.

Understanding Stress

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Last week, I went to the Table Talk where different Rose Scholars as well as the GRF talked about their different experiences with stress. On campus, there a lot of times where people are stressed out due to academic work, things back home, as well as the uncertainty of the future and it can really affect people. I feel as Cornell students we are constantly between peak performance and overworking ourselves due to our stress levels. This is why in my opinion all-nighters are a trend, as a student some of us have jobs or other extracurriculars that take up the already limited times in our day due to going to lectures. So people, decide to sacrifice sleep to obtain the time that they are not able to get. I feel short term there is nothing wrong with this besides fatigue or exhaustion.

However, long term, I think about how this much stress that is usually consistent in a four year, and for some even eight year academic setting can really affect us as this new generation coming into the real world. Sure as Cornellians’, this university prepares us for the real world in terms of knowledge but what about other things that matter such as people skills. I understand that in some majors such as STEM or engineering to name a few, we treat each other as competitors to beat the curve on exams. But in the real world most positions or career paths encourage collaboration and leadership to make sure goals are met. So, as college students I encourage us to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and not make college a miserable and stressful experience for four years. Health wise, in the future it may affect us more than we would have ever known. Yes grades are important but let me ask you the reader a question.

Ten years from now will your GPA really matter? Another follow up question. Ten years from now will stressing and depriving yourself of sleep be worth it?

Discussion about Disability

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During last week’s Rose Cafe, Erin Sember-Chase spoke to us about disabilities on campus as well as obstacles she has had to face in her own life. She is the Assistant Director and Disability Counselor at Cornell Health.

As a college student, she remembered facing an obstacle in which she could not hear her professor very well. The class was called intro to theater. She sat in the front row and had a hearing aid but she could not hear the professor because not only did he not wear a microphone the room seemed to have poor sound acoustics. So, one day after class she politely went up to the professor and asked if he could wear a microphone because of the circumstances she was facing and he refused. He said to her, “As an actor, I know I can project my voice”. So she told her mother and she had to call the president of the university because there was no Student Disability Services.

The importance of the Student Disability Services was highlighted  in the Disabilities Rights Acts. People and allies banded together to get this act passed. This occurred 27 years ago.

We also discussed our experiences with disabled students. I remembered in elementary and high school how the disabled students were kept in their own classroom essentially segregated from the non-disabled students and we were never educated on why this was. Other students explained inclusion classes which were when high performance students were paired with disabled students. The way administration would make it feel, like the students were not competent and that they needed help, which effected the equality between those students.

There is also a cultural aspect with how different countries deal with disabled people. For example Erin explained how she used to have a service dog and when she was in NYC they were not as understanding as people in Toronto, Canada.

A Perspective on Dating

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On Saturday, I attended the talk about Dating and Relationships. I was in awe of the turn out, there had to be like 40 people there in the little seminar room.  At first, like a lot of times where people are in a room of people they do not know, the conversation was hard to get started.

SA Andrew came up with a great idea, he had people in groups of two that have never met each other before discuss the question, which in this case was “How does Cornell students being so career oriented effect their relationships when it comes to dating?” I personally feel that it is the lack of obligation that people have when it comes to investing time into a relationship with another person. After this activity, people started opening and giving their own thoughts and opinions. I could feel the tension snap as people began to feel more comfortable. This was definitely a topic that needed to be discussed.

Also, it was really nice to see people come out on a Saturday morning to have a discussion.

My perspective of War on Terror

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For this week’s table talk, on the date of September 11th, we discussed the war on terror. We ranged from topics of what we personally remembered from the actual incident. I personally, do not recall what happened that day seeing as I was four years old. However, after years later of learning about it in classrooms and doing research about it on my own, I understand that this incident changed the United States of America forever. Secondly, we discussed the definition of the war on terror. I defined it as an ambiguous term, who’s origin was President George W. Bush. He declared this in his speech post 9/11, when Al-Qaeda took responsibility for the incident.

While this declaration increased his presidential popularity, it also gave vulnerable Americans a new, but at times misguided sense of patriotism. I also talked about the aftermath, which was some Americans used this patriotism to put prejudice upon people from the middle east. This is still prevalent in the present.

I also learned from others that, we’ve made ourselves allies with countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan because it is better to have as allies rather than enemies. In Saudi Arabia, they have strict human right violations which impede on people’s freedom.