Prompt #1: Common Misconceptions About Careers in the Medical Field

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For an assignment I was required to make a list of preconceptions about my chosen field and to find an introductory textbook that tests those preconceptions. Since my topic is physiology, it was hard to find a textbook that solely focused on careers in physiology. So, instead, I found one that focuses on the health care system as a whole. It is called Introduction to Health Care and Careers by Roxann DeLaet.

Some preconceptions I had about the health care/medical fields are:

• You have to get nearly perfect grades in college to become a doctor, physician’s assistant, or basically any very successful career in the medical field

• You have to go to school for what seems like forever

• If you do choose to go through all of the schooling, you make a very good amount of money

• You have to know unlimited amounts of information that is almost impossible to remember

• It is hard to move up in your career because there are so many things that you could do wrong 

• It is very hard to make it through school because the medical field is becoming very competitive and a lot of people are starting to choose the medical field as their career path

• Doctors have to know everything and not make any mistakes to become great doctors

• Doctors and other people in the medical field have practically no time for their families because of the long hours

After reading through some of the textbook, it was hard to find direct answers to my questions. However, I did find some useful information.

The textbook says that educational requirements for becoming a patient care professional range from 1 to 2 years of specialized training or some careers can even require an associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree. These are generally requirements for medical assistants, physician’s assistants, licensed practical nurses, certified nurse’s assistants, registered nurses, and emergency medical technicians. It really depends on what career you are looking to pursue, but if you’re looking to pursue a career in the medical field, you might not have to go to school as long as you may think!

I also learned that people that have careers in the medical field typically have to have certain personality traits. These traits include being enthusiastic, patient, optimistic, honest, cooperative, organized, responsible, sociable, and having high self-esteem. It is also ideal to be flexible with your schedule. The textbook explains these traits in a lot more detail than I’m going to so if you’re curious more information can be found there!

Some other things that are expected of people in the medical field are being dedicated to public service, being motivated by job fulfillment, having a good sense of time management, having good communication skills, being competent and trustworthy, and being able to solve problems with critical thinking.

I could not find some of the answers to my questions while using this textbook, but it does have a lot of useful information in careers in health care if that is something you are curious about or looking to become. This textbook made me realize that becoming a doctor or having a career in the medical field is a very achievable goal and it is not impossible. Overall I think this is a good, useful textbook that relates to my blog topic. Here is a picture of the textbook I used:

Photo credit: www.amazon.com

Even though some of the answers weren’t in the textbook, I did find a website that has myths and facts about the medical field where more of my questions were answered! I thought this website was really insightful and helpful, so here is the link if you’d like to check it out!

Yarber, Mary. "Want to Be a Doctor? Myths and Facts About Medical Education." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 1991. Web. 29 Jan. 2016.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-21/news/we-2239_1_medical-school

Open Post #1: Is Exercise Unhealthy for the Heart?

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I've recently read an article titled "When Exercise Is Unhealthy for the Heart: Researchers Describe How Heart Problems and Sudden Cardiac Death Occur with Endurance Exercise" which follows researcher Jeffrey Towbin's discoveries about the correlation between heavy exercise and heart problems. It is said that enduring too much exercise could possibly lead to cardiac arrest. 

Arrhythmogenic ventricular cardiomyopathy (AVC) is a genetic heart problem that is most commonly recognized after one participates in too much exercise. I’ve learned that AVC can lead to sudden cardiac arrest which can result in death. This is really surprising to me, I never realized that exercise could actually be a bad thing for your body! AVC is such a problem because it causes the walls of your heart to be weaker and less able to hold themselves together. When someone that has AVC is heavily exercising or doing something that increases their heart rate rapidly, it can stretch the walls of their heart to a point that causes them to come apart from each other. 

I’ve also learned that there are ways to find out if you have AVC before you put too much stress on your heart and possibly cause problems by exercising. I just want to know: how exactly can doctors detect this kind of genetic mutation of the heart? And if it is detected, does that mean that someone with AVC can no longer exercise or is there a way to treat AVC? This was a very interesting article to me and I would suggest reading through it!

"Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy." British Heart Foundation. British Heart Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2016.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/conditions/cardiomyopathy/arrhythmogenic-right-ventricular-cardiomyopathy

"When Exercise Is Unhealthy for the Heart: Researchers Describe How Heart Problems and Sudden Cardiac Death Occur with Endurance Exercise." American Physiological Society. American Physiological Society, 24 Nov. 2015. Web. 26 Jan. 2016. http://www.the-aps.org/mm/hp/Audiences/Public-Press/2015/66.html