Synthesis Essay

Alyssa Lentini

WRA 110.010

Prof. Sarah Gibbons

17 April 2016

                This blog has taken a lot of time and effort to complete and I have learned a lot over the 10 weeks that I have been writing it for. I’ve learned so much about the medical field and physiology that I never knew before, and this information is so valuable. I’ve encountered useful information for career paths and topics relating to moving forward with my major, and I have also found just interesting articles that everyone can relate to. I have also become a better writer since I have started this blog. I think that writing this blog has given me the opportunity to write from a new perspective for a new audience. I have genuinely enjoyed writing this blog and I hope my readers were satisfied and entertained while reading it.

                The purpose of my blog was to hopefully provide my readers with a lot of helpful, informative content about physiology. I wanted to express the importance of physiology and the medical field to my readers and people of society. There are many reasons why physiology is important that my blog has talked about. I think that everyone should know about physiology because everyone should know their body and how it functions. There are many ways to talk and learn about physiology rather than just reading about organs or things that people don’t like learning about. There are many topics that are physiology related that everyone can find useful and interesting. If you have read my blog posts, then hopefully you have made this connection! There are many ways that physiology can connect to anyone’s daily life even without them realizing it.

                Not everything that I posted about on my blog is just about organs or organ systems. There were a lot of posts that I created that involved current physiological discoveries or studies that could relate to most people that read my blog. I think these posts, such as: “Is exercise Unhealthy for the Heart?”, “Why Water Can Be Considered Unhealthy” and “Which is the Right Way to Exercise?”, are useful and informative for anyone to read, even if they don’t know anything about physiology. Physiology is the study of the human body and its functions, therefore, everyone should know something about it. I think it is important for everyone to know their body and what it can do. I believe that my posts or the articles related to my posts can have useful information that can benefit anyone. They contain information about new scientific or medical discoveries and I found these articles very interesting and I wanted to share this information with my readers.

                My blog can also be helpful to people that are considering going into the medical field. I have written posts about different careers someone can have with a physiology degree and I have written about things that relate to physiology. This blog can be useful for anyone who is looking for information about physiology for career information and for anyone just looking for something interesting to read. Writing this blog has prepared me more for working in this field because now that I have had to look up information and articles about physiology, I know more about it. I have learned about new career paths that I can possibly take and I have also learned about new discoveries in the physiology and medical fields. I think that most of the blog posts were easy to write, except some of the prompted posts. I struggled during writing some of these just because it was a difficult prompt or it was just hard to find new articles to reference and write about.  However, I think that overall I was successful in writing this blog. I believe that I have delivered the information on my blog effectively and I have completed this assignment to its full potential.

Open Post #10: Can Losing Too Many Electrolytes be Deadly?

Photo credit: elete.com

I read an interesting article about electrolyte loss and how it affects a person’s physiological function. Anyone can lose electrolytes when exercising heavily, but apparently the results can be more severe than I ever thought. Usually when people play sports like volleyball, football, and basketball, their electrolyte levels are fine because the games aren’t that long. However, people that run marathons or exercise to the point where they lose several liters of sweat are at risk.

 I have learned that if someone loses enough electrolytes, their sodium concentration levels can get dangerously low (under 135 mmol/L) and this could lead to a condition called hyponatraemia. As a result of this condition, someone could lose consciousness, experience hallucinations and go into a coma, experience brain herniation or even death.

It is so important to keep yourself hydrated when exercising or playing sports. Keeping electrolytes in your body is key because it keeps you energized and strong and this can be done by ingesting food or beverages. This article taught me a lot about how to properly keep myself hydrated when I exercise, hopefully it can be helpful to you, too. This was a good source of information and hopefully more people can use it to their advantage.

"UCJC Study Reveals Excessive Electrolyte Loss May Lead to Hyponatraemia." News-Medical.net. News Medical, 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.

Prompt #10: Recognizing Truth

I have found an article that talks about how the medical field is misrepresented and there were some common mistakes that I found. Most people think that only science majors can get into medical school, you have to be rich to attend medical school, you will be rich if you become a doctor, and that taking a gap year between college and applying to medical school looks bad for admissions committees. These things are all incorrect.

Photo credit:weirdscholarships.net

Doctors and people working the medical field are often misconceived, and this article provides good examples of this. It is common for people thinking of going to medical school to major in something science related, however, that is not always the case. You just need the required classes for medical school and you can major in anything you want.

Also, you don’t have to be rich to go to medical school. There are many ways to get loans for medical school and there are different programs to help medical school students with this. Even if you do have the money to put yourself through medical school, that doesn’t mean that you’ll still be rich after. Becoming a doctor doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll become rich. There are many types of jobs and specialties that different doctors and people in the medical field can choose. Not every job is going to pay the same and it just depends where you’re working in general. There are hospitals and workplaces that are considered better than others, so you may not get paid the same.

 Finally, taking a gap year between college and applying for medical school does not give admissions committees a bad impression. This just shows that you want to take some time for yourself, maybe to work and begin paying off your loans, take more classes that will help with medical school, or do volunteer work. If you spend your gap year doing things related to the medical field and show that you are still interested in that field, then it looks good on a medical school application. If you are taking a year off just because you want a break and you don’t do anything to further your experience with the medical field, this is a different story.

There are so many misrepresentations of the medical field than there should be. People need to have a more open mind about the possibilities of the medical field; not everything is impossible. Having a career in the medical field is a more attainable goal than most people think. Sure, there are some difficulties, but if you set your mind to it, you can make it happen for yourself.

Persson, Ricky. "Common Misconceptions about Medical School and Becoming a Doctor." Gap Medics US. Gap Medics US, 03 Oct. 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

Open Post #9: New Strategies for Finding Drug Targets for Cancer

I recently read an article about how scientists are testing new ways of looking for gene mutations that cause cancer. This article was very interesting because I don’t know a lot about cancers and how they work, but this article gave me a little more background. I’ve always been curious about how cancer develops and how we can stop it, and this article talks about scientists’ attempts of doing just that.

I learned that instead of looking for mutations that are all in the same gene, scientists are now looking for mutations that are in protein genes or have common pathways with each other. They are also thinking that instead of just one specific protein, cancer may be caused by groups of genes. I have also learned that sometimes, in cancer, genes may not always be mutated. Scientists don’t know whether the mutations have anything to do with the cancer or not, it could just be a coincidence that they are there. These scientists have done a few experiments to attempt to figure out if the mutations are related to cancer or not.

This article was a good source of information on cancer research and gene mutations. I hope that these scientists figure out if mutations are related to cancer because I would absolutely love to see it cured or at least the world come a step closer. Check out the article below!

Photo credit:knowledgeofhealth.com

Yandell, Kate. "Pulling It All Together." The Scientist. The Scientist, 1 Apr. 2016. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Prompt #9: Recognizing Significance

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Physiology is so important in the medical field because doctors and caregivers are supposed to want to give patients the best care possible. To do this, one must study human physiology and anatomy so that they will be able to give a better, more accurate diagnosis. It is just important for a doctor to know the human body, how could someone get through medical school if they didn’t?

The reason people go to the hospital is because one of their organs or organ systems isn’t functioning correctly, so they look to their doctor or caregiver to help them and find the problem. This is so important because, without physiology and doctors, nurses, caregivers, etc., no one would know how to treat themselves or others to help them get better. In the end, we need doctors and the medical field as a whole to function as a society. Also, knowing physiology and the anatomy of the human body makes any doctor or caregiver much more credible and it is completely necessary to have physiology courses as a requirement for medical degrees, medicals school, etc.

It is important for everyone to know at least something about physiology. Physiology is your body and how it functions, everyone should know where certain parts are and how they function at least somewhat. We need to know ourselves and our bodies, and that is why physiology studies are so helpful. All of this research done by scientists was done to help us be able to learn about our bodies and how they work, and I believe that is very useful knowledge. I am very passionate about physiology and I cannot stress its importance any more than I have.

"Why Is Human Anatomy and Physiology so Important to Your Success in a Health Care Field?" (n.d.): n. pag. College of Lake County. College of Lake County. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.

Prompt #8: Practicing Your Knowledge

I was assigned to find a hands-on experience that relates to my blog topic. The closest thing I could find to a hands-on experience were some anatomy and physiology games online. Even though you’re not actually touching these games, they are helpful when it comes to learning about physiology.

On the website I found, there were many different game options that related to anatomy and physiology. There were matching games, flash cards, interactive review games, and arcade games. These multiple versions of the material are really helpful for studying and learning about physiology because you get the opportunity to view the information in many ways. I think these ways are more effective than just reading over the material or looking at it, I would say most people probably don’t learn as well this way. Below is a screenshot I took of one of the interactive matching games:

Personally, I learned more through these games than I did when just reading the information or just listening to a lecture from one of my professors. Interacting with the information was really helpful for me. Hopefully, if you are interested in learning more about physiology, you take a look and try some of these games!

The website is: http://www.millerplace.k12.ny.us/webpages/lmiller/reviewgames.cfm

Scott, Christina. "Anatomy & Physiology Review Games." Anatomy & Physiology Review Games. Christina Scott, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2016.

Open Post #8: Can Sleep Decrease Re-balancing of Brain Activity?

It was first thought that sleeping helps better encode memories and information experienced and learned throughout the day. During sleep, there was an opportunity for brain networks to re-balance themselves. However, newer studies have indicated that this may be incorrect.

I read an article titled “Sleep suppresses homeostatic re-balancing of brain activity” and it explains that instead of sleep increasing the re-balancing of brain networks, it decreases it. It is now said that homeostatic brain activity re-balancing happens when people are awake rather than asleep.

Photo credit: freezedryguy.com

These findings suggest that things like memory consolidation and homeostatic re-balancing have to be temporally separated from each other so they don’t interfere with each other and cause problems. There is more information in the article below, I just wanted to provide a brief summary of the discovery.

This article taught me that some scientific findings can seem true, but everything can be proved wrong. There will always be advances in technology that can lead to advances and changes in scientific discoveries. Things today are always changing and developing and we can’t always believe what was once “right”. New discoveries, especially in science, can prove old theories wrong and things like this can change the world and how we perceive it. This article was a good source of information, I have used this source before. Check out the article below!

"Sleep Suppresses Homeostatic Rebalancing of Brain Activity." News-Medical.net. News Medical, 22 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.