Extra Blog 1: Interesting research facts

Interesting Fact on Medical Missions

                         The most question inducing single fact that I have found so far in my research is located on medical missions.org, which, by the name alone, you can tell is dedicated to the topic of helping provide medical care to developing countries. Upon digging into the site, I found a list of official scheduled medical missions for 2013. I found that the Philippines has 112 scheduled medical missions this year, while Mexico only has 6, this may be in part due to that some missions are operated by individuals like my grandfather, so maybe there are a lot more missions taking place there, but it made me think about how our efforts can be best directed in performing these missions... Fruit for thought. Below is a graph I found online about the percentage of the world that lacks adequate medical care.

This picture is a statistical graph I found while researching medical missions and the lack of adequacy of medical care in third world countries. The picture speaks for itself, but the figure of 7.6 million really shocked me when I first read it

Blog 4: Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?
a. For interview 1, I plan to interview my grandfather, Robinson V Baron, chief of staff at Citrus Valley Health Center. My grandfather was an obvious choice for my first interview because he will provide the base and structure of my senior project, which is focussing on medical missionary work. The reason my grandfather will play such an important role in my project is because without him, I would not have any opportunity to take part in the medical missions to both Tecate, Mexico, and the Philippines, both of which he founded and is in charge of. On these missions it is my grandfather who will be my primary mentor in taking me along side him during his work, ranging from patient checkups and rounds, to actual surgical procedures. 

2.  You have to ask 5 questions.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  Ask open-ended questions.  
a. After reading the contract I noticed that under interview 1 there is a set of 5 questions that I believe are mandatory in helping me narrow down my topic. Along side those questions I would like to gather information on who else can be my mentor on these medical missions as I do understand that it is recommended to find several experts in teaching me about my topic.  I would like to ask about my grandfather's perspective on these missions and what his overall goals are in taking part in them. I think the question I will emphasize the most however is what I can do to prepare myself better for these missions so I can contribute more when the time comes.

Blog 3: Topic Choice and Semester 1 ESLR Goals

1.  List your topic here: Medical Missionary Work 
2.  What do you plan to do this year to show growth in each of the ESLRs?  Be specific and use an example.  Examples can come from senior project, model assembly, core, and/or participation in senior class ASB or other organizations on campus (clubs etc).

• iPoly Citizen
• As an iPoly citizen I plan to get involved in the planning and execution of major school events. To be specific, I was just talking to Jeremy today about ideas on how we could step up Scare Fair as I rememebered the day before Purther talking about how the best year was 200(3?). In general participation is what I see myself doing more to show growth as an iPoly citizen. 
• Effective Learner
• As an effective learner I wanted to experiment in Mrs. Pittman's challenge in completing all of the physics problems in the book she assigned us. There's around 50 per chapter so it may take longer than one semester but in this reguard I believe that this will be my most effective way in showing growth as an effective learner. Doing this will also help me in the class overall and so I'm hoping to do very well in her class
• Effective User of Technology
• As for technology, I plan on becoming a better blogger. Last year one of my weaknesses was regularly doing my english blog, so this year my goal is to not only improve my writing, but try and turn in every single blog. Another thing I'd like to be able to accomplish is learning how to make spreadsheets faster on google docs. This sounds weird but when I was making my log for my summer hours I found myself manually deleting columns and numbers one by one, which took me a good hour to complete. 
• Effective Communicator 
• Becoming an effective communicator will ultimately stem from my participation in iPoly's speech and debate elective. I would like to believe that I am a good public speaker already, as well as a good debater, my belief comes from the fact that my first semester of in speech I won all of my debates and ended up with a percentage of 107% as my grade. Ms. Schiller has told me that she would like to start an actual debate team to go out to competitions this year, and would like me to be the captain. Aside from my competitions, I plan to show my growth in model assembly as I believe it will be the hardest test so far of my public speaking abilities and as an effective communicator.

Senior Mentorship Component

Literal:  

1. (Know) Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties (click here for an example)

a.  Here is the Spreadsheet document I made to display my hours and duties: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmlR-XYQ4aaidElDcF9TcXMzRGZHTHFPVFEyWnJpdkE#gid=0

2. Contact Name & Number

a. Robinson V Baron (same name as me). (626)-260-5135  

3. (Need to know) What questions were raised because of the 10 hours of experience?  List them.  

a. Come the main medical mission in January, will I be able to still contribute positively without getting in the way of actual doctors and nurses? 

b. Even though I was able to contribute on the Tecate mission, since all the Philippines is is basically local and major surgical attention, will it still count as mentorship if I don't have as much hands on time? 

c. After taking part in several missions already, it does not seem like they make a huge difference in the community as every time we visit places we've been before, there's always a huge abundance of people. So basically I'm wondering if there is a better solution to medical missions to provide medical care to poorer places. 

Interpretive

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

a. I learned that when it came to helping people in general, I did not have to provide medical care to make their lives a little better. What I am referring to is when I aided in cooking for over 100 people before sitting in with the medical students who were administering medication. My hope is that this will carry over in the Philippines when the mission gains a lot more depth in procedures. 
  
Applied
   
5. How did what you did help you choose a topic?  Please explain.

a.  As previously mentioned, I have taken part in several medical missions already, and taking part in the Mexico one only strengthened the feeling that this topic is one that really interests me and can help build a strong support for a future career. Another major point is that not many people have the opportunity that I do, so it's best to take advantage of it while I can.