My Life Learning Experience with R.S.V Essay

R. S. V My Life Learning Experience with R. S. V Name Course Title Teacher Date Abstract Many individuals have experienced problems with their hospitals or health care facilities. An important concept that I learned from facing this family crisis that will be examined in this paper is that, when a family member becomes seriously ill, they need quality medical care. Sometimes, when a person’s life is at stake, the further a person lives from medical facilities which can offer quality care can be a grave factor. R. S. V 1 R. S. V in Infants This paper will examine several lessons and concepts which I learned from personal life-learning experiences. Three examples that will be addressed in this paper will examine a different aspect of a certain life-learning experience. In researching and analyzing each aspect of a life-learning experience, this paper will examine the four elements of Kolb’s Model of Experimental Learning. The first aspect of the lessons I learned after enduring a family crisis which this paper will explore includes how I learned about an illness that frequently affects infants called Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV, is a respiratory virus which has many of the same symptoms as the common cold and is usually contracted by children during winter months. After my newborn son, Carter Forrest Barnhart began displaying symptoms of a common cold, my husband and I took Carter to his local pediatrician. Unfortunately, the pediatrician improperly diagnosed the virus as a simple common cold and sent Carter, my husband and I back home. However, after we returned home, his symptoms did not improve. Instead, he began coughing profusely and did not want to eat. I became greatly concerned about our son’s health. Within a few days, Carter had lost weight and become weak. Then his breathing appeared to be abnormal, and my husband and I began to suspect that something else was wrong with Carter. R. S. V 2 By April 7th, 2002, Carter’s breathing problems got considerably worse, and my husband and I thought that he could possibly suffocate. So, in a desperate attempt to help Carter’s health, we brought our son to the nearest hospital. He was then hospital, arrangements needed to be made to send him to Charleston Area Medical Center. Carter later arrived safely at the Women and Children’s Hospital, a division of the Charleston Area Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia. He was then placed in the hospital’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where he remained for five days. Looking back, I now realize the high importance of residing in communities which have high quality health care facilities. I learned that the first doctor who diagnosed my son did not diagnose Carter properly by failing to recognize that what looked like the common cold was actually Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). The pediatrician’s error could have cost my son his life. After Carter was taken to the emergency room at our local hospital, I learned that, when someone’s life is at stake, the distance from a medical facility which can provide quality care is sometimes a life and death matter. Thus, one of the lessons that I learned by this life-learning experience is that it is important for all individuals to have quick access to a state of the art hospital or medical facility. A medical facility must be able to provide the excellent care that a seriously ill R. S. V 3 ndividual needs. In this example, a baby needed to be treated by a special infant care unit, which our local hospitals did not have. Therefore, the baby did not have ready access to the kind of medical facility that he needed. The proper medical facility can mean the difference of life or death, thus, I now understand that the quality of the medical facilities, and the services received from those facilities provided, is one of the important issues facing people today. Learning about the importance of living near a high quality health care facility helped me become amiliar with the idea that a person should be fully educated about the health services in his or her community before something critical occurs. I regretted the fact that we were not more prepared to deal with this crisis. Thus, I have since learned that I need to research the qualifications of any professional my child will be receiving treatment from. In the future, I will research hospitals or schools before enrolling my child in them. I can also apply the concept that quality care is an important aspect of a person’s life to other situations as well. For example, I will have o make sure that my child has a qualified pediatrician and dentist to take care of his health needs in the future. I will also have to ensure that my child gets his vaccinations. Moreover, I learned that there is no substitute for being prepared for an emergency situation. I plan on researching the response time of our police and fire departments and plan to learn about the efficiency of our ambulance services. Another part of the lessons I learned while confronting this family crisis is how I learned that high quality heath care is best provided by highly qualified doctors. I lso learned that an unqualified doctor may easily misdiagnose a patient’s symptoms. The discussion below will show how I have learned to ask questions before selecting a pediatrician. My son was initially treated by a pediatrician who misdiagnosed the baby’s medical symptoms and declared that our infant was we were told to take our child home and give him some cold medicine. This was our child’s only treatment, and the medicine did not work. Carter’s symptoms did not improve after a reasonable period of time. Thus, my husband and I began to suspect that something else could be wrong. Then, when our baby turned pasty in color, started to cry inconsolably, refused to eat or drink anything, lost weight, and then hardly cried or moved in his crib, my husband and I became more concerned. We later learned that Carter had RSV and double pneumonia. Since then, I have spoken to many doctors about rural medicine. One of the doctors I spoke to that works at our local hospital explained in a recent personal interview which I conducted with him that many people do not ask enough questions of their doctors after they have been told the results of a diagnosis. He advised that potential atients should ask about all terms that describe the problem and that the doctor should fully explain the R. S. V 5 condition to the patient. More importantly, when the patient is a baby, the infant’s parents need to understand the complete diagnosis of their child’s condition The doctor also said that a great deal of rural patients do not know how to properly ask their doctors specific questions related to the diagnosis. Therefore, rural doctors need to take more time to explain things to their patients, especially in cases where doctors are not absolutely sure of the diagnosis. I was also told that some patients have no reason to be told when something is misdiagnosed as nothing more than the common cold, especially when a child’s doctor confidently tells an infant’s parents that the symptoms should improve when the baby took the cold medicine. The lesson is that parents must be very careful when choosing a pediatrician. I learned that a good pediatrician knows how to check a baby for a variety of diseases. In the case of my son, the first pediatrician failed to properly diagnose the baby because he was, at the very least, was not familiar with the symptoms of RSV. Thus, I learned that receiving treatment from a qualified pediatrician is an essential part of a child’s health care. I also realized, in other areas of my life, I need to be certain that I am qualified to perform any Job that I might later want to undertake. So it is imperative that I take my education as serious as possible so that I will later be prepared to succeed in my chosen career. R. S. V6 Another important concept that I learned through my life-learning experience is that Just like other people, doctors make errors too. Unfortunately, a doctor’s mistake can cause the loss of ones life. Any professional should avoid making unnecessary mistakes at all times. Therefore, I would like to avoid making mistakes which would be considered negligence in my chosen career. Thus, I now believe that I need as much training in the field of health care management as possible, because that is the field which I intend to begin my professional career once I have received my Bachelors Degree. I also now would like to become actively involved in professional organizations and associations in which school friends and successful will help me exchange information with other health care management professionals hich will hopefully help me keep atop of current developments in my field. The third aspect of the lessons I learned which this paper will explore is that many rural health care facilities in America do not have up to date equipment. I also learned that, for the past several years, many local family health care facilities have suffered from recent cutbacks in federal grant money. This paper will now discuss my findings about the importance of selecting a health care facility which has up to date equipment and employees that keep on top of current developments in the medical ield. R. S. V7 Not only were the doctors more knowledgeable at the Women and Children’s Hospital in Charleston, but the doctors at the hospital in Charleston also had more current equipment and also performed their duties much more quickly and efficiently than the doctors at the local hospital. I learned that, when the life of a loved one is at stake, a hospital with modern equipment and trained staff can mean the difference between life and death. I also now believe that parents should visit the local hospitals before their first child is ever born to make sure those hospitals re not understaffed, dirty, or not funded properly. While larger hospitals may charge more money for visits, the money paid for a proper diagnosis at a quality facility is far less than the money one might pay if an illness is misdiagnosed. In addition, local medical care facilities need to provide quality, up to date services to their patients. In this situation, Carter needed to be treated in a special care unit in which â€Å"patients are attached to electronic monitors which track vital functions as well as to other equipment that support breathing† (Roberts, 1993, p. 170). Unfortunately, only larger acilities usually have modern pediatric intensive care units, and large hospitals are not all cities. I have learned that a high quality health care facility should have up to date equipment. Modern equipment is essential to provide patients with the best possible R. S. V8 health care. However, a lot of rural hospitals cannot afford this. The issue of a facility which does not have modern equipment is a very important one, and the concept applies to other situations which I may have to deal with later on. For instance, I will want to make sure that, any school my child is enrolled in should have adequate acilities. I will want to ensure that the school has smoke detectors in every classroom and that the fire extinguishers are in proper working order. This paper analyzed the various lessons and concepts that I learned from some â€Å"life-learning† experiences. Each of the paper’s three parts explored a different aspect of my experiences. This paper used the four elements of Kolb’s Model of Experimental Learning to detail how I used the lessons during a family crisis. R. S. V9 References Mesa, CA: ICN Pharmaceuticals. Roberts, M. J. (1993). Your Money or Your Life: The Health Care Crisis Explained. New York: Doubleday.