This was the first draft to my Historical Conversations Project. This was the first time I encountered multi-modality, and I was really confused as to what images to put other than graphs. I did not know what was considered effective and what was considered not useful. This was the first time I also dealt with researching about a topic with zero ground or base to start on (like articles or ideas that were already kind of stated my the teacher/professor). This was much more independent. 

Alicia Lin

Annie Yaniga

Writing 39C

2 Feb. 2016

HCP Rough Draft #1

            Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or physician holds the professional skill to complete a medical task but still fails (“malpractice”). Medical malpractice has existed since the beginning of health care just because before medicine was highly unreliable. However, even with the technology that we have today, we still have medical malpractice cases, which shows that technology is not quite the problem as it is the training and ethics of the medical professionals.

            This is a problem because despite the technology we have there are still people dying and becoming unnecessarily injured because of malpractice/ physician negligence. This shows that this problem stems from human error, i.e. not enough training on the medical professionals part.  As shown by the graph, most medical malpractice occurs in surgeries and in diagnostics of  a disease; parts of the job that too also requires much medical training. “Web MD” has shown that

just having technology is not enough to diagnose oneself, but with a help of a medical professional, the medical problem is suppose to be solved. However this is not always the case. To help solve this problem, video games should be incorporated into the training curriculum so that they can face simulations of many different scenarios making them more prepared and less nervous when the issue occurs in real life.

            While there’s always a stigma against videos games and its destructive harm that it does onto humans, such as an increase in violence and aggression as well as sexism, the use of video would be quite useful as doctors and surgeons can simulate different medical scenarios and be more prepared when the occasion occurs. According to “The Impact of Video Games on Training Surgeons in the 21st Century”, the resident advisors/attending physicians who played more than 3 hours of video games a week made fewer mistakes than those who played only 3 hours a week. While playing an excessive amount of videos games is correlated to many terrible effects, like “obesity, aggressive thoughts, a decline in positive pro-social behavior”, playing just the right amount helped improved the trainees’ skills that prevented them from making more errors.

            This correlates with history, as the lack of training and knowledge such as the lack of hygiene was the cause of many deaths back then. As we move along the 21st century, we have so much technology and technology evolving to help us solve problems and eliminate diseases that we couldn’t do in the past. However, even with this technology, physicians and surgeons are still making errors when it comes to diagnoses and surgeries.

            Cases of malpractice also arise from the doctor’s drive for money, showing their immoral ethics. This was just the case for Henrietta Lacks as she was diagnosed with cancer, Lacks was forced to sign documents releasing her cells. This is a problem because Lacks was not informed as to what she signed and released. The doctor had her sign the papers releasing her possession of the cells knowing that her cells contained special properties which allowed them to continue growing. Even after her death and as her family continued to live in poverty, the doctor who forced her to sign the papers, profited off the cells as it was distributed all around the world. This is a problem because with the lust and drive for money, it led to the doctor have her release her rights to her cells and using it for profit rather than trying to find a cure for her. Neither did they offer any compensation to her struggling family members.

A controlled amount of videos games does help the residents and attending  physicians reduce the amount of errors they made. Thus by incorporating a controlled amount of video games in the standards of becoming a doctor, errors can slowly be eliminated.

Works Cited

"malpractice." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.Web. 23 Jan 2016

Rosser JC, Jr, Lynch PJ, Cuddihy L, Gentile DA, Klonsky J, Merrell R. The Impact of Video

Games on Training Surgeons in the 21st Century. Arch Surg. 2007