Blog 26: Senior Project Reflection

1) Positive Statement

• The thing that I am most proud of in my senior project is that I completed all of my hours at my mentorship event though my mentor was on maternity leave for more then four months. 

2) Questions to Consider

• a) After completing my two hour presentation and assessing what I did, the assessment that I would give my self would be a P. 

• b) The assessment that I would give my overall senior project would be a P. 

3) What Worked

• The thing that worked for me in my senior project was that I had the necessary research and resources to help me answer my essential question and I had enough information to back up the answers with evidence. 

4) What didn't work

• If I could go back in time and change one thing from my senior project it  would be completing my first set of monitorship hours. I was so busy with other stuff going on with school and outside activities that I fell behind and I had to make the hours up in less time. This became stressful for me and after that I was always doing the amount of weekly hours that I needed to do to stay on track.

5) Finding Value

• My senior project has been helpful to me in my future endeavors because It has allowed me to explore the medical field and shadow doctors. This has made me come to the conclusion that I would like to pursue the medical field in the future and focus on working with teenagers. Also my mentorship has given me more experience with patient contact which will help me when I am in the ,medical field.

2-Hour Presentation

I finally finished all of the different activities for my two hour presentation. I am some what relieved, but I am also nervous about the actual presentation. I feel as if audience will feel a little uncomfortable about the topic and I do not want to make the presentation awkward. But I will just try my best and hopefully the take the information seriously because they are in the age group that has the highest STD rates, meaning they need to be more cautious about contracting an STD.

Plan B Pill

I went to the store the other day to buy condoms for my presentation and while in the area of the store where they sell contraceptives I saw that they also sell the Plan B Pill. I was amazed when I asked one of the workers if people need a prescription to buy it and she said no. I then proceeded to ask her how many times can a person go in to buy the plan B pill and she said as many times as they want to. This means that girls can use this as a form of birth control, which is not safe because using it to many times can be dangerous to your body.  The pill should only be used no more than four times or so in ones life time according to my mentor.

2-Hour Video

I choose this video for my two hour presentations, because it is a great example of a media source that parents can use to start conversations with their child about sex education. Which can lead to conversations about STDs and Birth control.

http://pollystreaming.com/American-Dad-Season-1-Episode-9-A-Smith-In-The-Hand_v12734#

GYT

I found a website called "Its your sex life" and it has a campaign called Get Yourself Testes, it is for youth to get tested for STDs. The website provides pdf files of posters, stickers and pamphlets for the Get Yourself Tested campaign. I printed one of the pamphlets for my two hour presentations, I made one pamphlet for every person in my presentations so that they are aware of where they can go get tested for STDs. The pamphlet also gives information in regards to Chlamydia, the most common STD.

Birth Control

While shadowing my mentor physician assistant Emma Cook at the family practice, I watched her do a pap-smear on a young lady. After that we began to talk about pap-smears and she informed me that after the first time you have sexual intercourse no matter what age you need to get a pap-smear within one year. We then began to discuss the different birth controls, and I asked her about patient confidentiality with parents and minors. She informed me that patients as young as twelve years old can go into the clinic and request birth control, without their parents content. Also is the parent goes to ask if their child had been prescribed birth control, they are not allowed to release that information to them.

My mentor informed me that the birth control pill needs to be taken every single day, at the same time every day to keep the women's hormone levels the same. This is the most common type of birth control.

This is the second most common type of birth control, it is birth control in an injection form. Women only need to get the injection once every three months. 

Posters

Finally today I picked up my posters from kinkos. The posters are for my two hour presentation, that are about STDs and have some facts on them aout STD prevention.

This is an example of one of the posters, I did not make them. I found them online. These are like some of the posters that I have seen.  

New Mentorship Office

This is one of the new offices in the new family practice location. They changed location because they had to many patients and the other location was to small.  

This is where the medical assistants work. Here they do their computer work and process the urine samples and finish their paper work. 

This is one of the new exam rooms in the new office. The rooms are a little bigger than the previous rooms and there are more rooms. There are six exam rooms. 

Mentorship Experience

My mentor Emma Balderas Cook is on a maternity leave, for about six months. She left in february because she was almost due, in the end of february she gave birth to a baby girl. Even though my mentor has been gone for three months, I have still been able to learn things at the clinic. I have been allowed to shadow the medical assistant since my mentor was not there. While shadowing I encountered many different patients that would not allow me to observe them in their room with the doctor. Although this was frustrating I still had a good experience.

Blog 25: Mentorship

Literal

• Stephanie Gamboa: Office Manager at Cora Med, (909) 865-5777 
• Mentor is Emma Cook: Leave of absence 
• Tiffany Ramirez: Foothill Presbyterian Hospital, (626) 915-6237

Interpretive

• The most important thing that I have gained from this experience is that I have learned how to communicate on a professional level. This experience has given me the opportunity to work with doctors, nurses and patients at both my mentors office and at Foothill Presbyterian. By working with the doctors, nurses, and patients I have learned how to communicate with each person in a different way. I learned that you do not communicate with the doctors in the same way that you  would with a patient. This was especially true at the hospital, because many times the patients are very ill and I have to communicate on a simpler level with them. This is very important to me because communication is used in almost every part of your life. Knowing how to communicate with people is a positive characteristic and it will help get you through life. 

Applied

• Through the time that I have spent at my mentorship I have been given many tasks. I have helped send letters to patients for follow up appointments. I have also shadowed my mentor Physician Assistant Emma Cook. My essential question is "What is the best way to promote STD prevention in youth?" The experience of shadowing in the doctors office has helped me answer my Essential Question because I was allowed to interact with patients which has allowed me too see how doctors promote STD prevention in youth. I learned that the doctors start promoting STD prevention at the age of about fifteen, or at the age when youth state that they are sexually active. They can legally start giving birth control with out parent consent at the age of twelve. This then helped me choose my first answer as my best answer. Which is, "Its is best to start informing youth from an early age about the consequences of being sexually active." The experiene at my mentorship helped me understand this answer in a better way. 

Planned Parenthood

On March 6, 2013 I went to Planned Parenthood to obtain information in regards to how they approach youth about sexually transmitted diseases. I went into the clinic, and there was a process that I had to take in order to obtain the information I was seeking. The secretary informed me that I would have to call the main office in Los Angeles. So I did, I called and they never responded back to me. So I went into the Planned Parenthood clinic again, and this time I went in as a patient. I filled out all the paper work, like if I was there to get tested for HIV. I was then called in by a nurse. When she took me in she asked me if I had any questions and I did. I  had a whole list of questions for her. I asked her questions in regards to how they promote getting tested and about the youth that go in  to get tested, she answered them as best as she could. I then got a better understanding of the Planned Parenthood goal. She was very passionate about the topic. She then tested me and I came out negative. I decided to get tested to experience what other youth experience when they decide to get tested. I realized that going to get tested is not as easy as it looks. By doing all the research about STD prevention and promotion I thought it would be easy to go in and ask to be tested. But after I went in to go get tested and I experienced it first hand. I found that it was very uncomfortable and awkward, I also talked to a few teens in the clinic and they also confirmed that it was awkward for them. They said it took a lot of courage for them to actually step into the clinic. I asked the teens that I talked to about how they had heard about the testing here at Planned Parenthood and they said through their sex ed class in school. This made me happy to know that the school program had encouraged some youth to go get tested. 

Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

1) What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?

• My essential question is "What is the best way to promote STD prevention in youth." The best answer to my essential question is that "It is best to start informing youth from an early age about the consequences of being sexually active." This is the best answer to my EQ because according to an articleResearch Facts and Findings more than seven percent of youth have had sexual intercourse before the age of thirteen. This research is very significant because, it means that there is a very young population engaging in sexual intercourse and they are at risk of contracting an STD. All youth need to be informed about the consequences of being sexually active before the age of thirteen, this includes informing them about STDs. Also it is very important to educate youth before they reach the age of fifteen, because youth ages 15-24 have the highest STD rates. This is according to Effective HIV and STD Prevention Programs for Youth. 

2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• The process that I took to arrive at this answer is that I started volunteering at my mentorship. Throughout  the entire time there, I observed many teens go into the Family Practice where I volunteer. Many of them were going into the office to be tested for an STD. The teens going in for these tests looked very young, and when I asked the medical assistant she informed me that most of them were no older than sixteen. This then made me gain an interest in learning about STDs in youth. I later researched STDs and found that they are most prevalent in youth ages 15-24. Even though they only make up twenty five percent of the sexually active population. Throughout my entire research I kept on encountering this fact, which made realize that it is very important to inform them about STDs before the age of fifteen. I then went to my mentor and asked talked to her about the facts I had found, she informed me that girls can go into the doctors office at the age of twelve and ask for birth control, and on a daily basis she gives young girls birth control. Thus this all lead me to me answer, "It is best to start informing youth from an early age about the consequences of being sexually active." 

3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

• The first problem that I faced was that my topic of family medicine was to broad, there were to many different topics within it. I had no idea what I wanted to focus on, so I resolved the problem by going to my mentor Physician Assistant Emma. I informed her about the problem I faced and she talked to me about the different topics that were with in the Family Practice topic. She informed me that the two topics I might be interested in were disease promotion and disease prevention. 
• The second problem that I encountered was that I could not find different research in regards to programs being implemented into schools. I had only found research in regards to programs being implemented, but I could not find the programs actual name. I resolved this by going on the Center for Disease Control website and looking up programs. This then lead me to find a few programs that were implemented into schools and that were successful. 

4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• The first most significant source is Effective HIV and STD Prevention Programs for Youth, because it gave me information in regards to successful STD programs for youth.
• The second program I that  helped me answer mt essential question was an article called Research Facts and Findings. That article helped me because it gave me shocking facts in regards to statistics on STD rates. 

5) What is your product and why?

• My product is that I gained communication skills, because I had to communicate with many of the office employes on a daily basis. I had to communicate with them to ask them questions about the work i was doing for that day or if I needed help with my senior project. They were all willing to help me with anything I needed. 

Blog 23: 2014 Interview

1.  Who did you interview and what house are they in?

• I interviewed Samantha C. Cooper, she is in West. 

2.  What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?

• She is interested in pursuing Military Law Enforcement ship, or Military Law Enforcement Officer ship for her senior project. She is interested in this field because she has a big military family background. Her father was in the Vietnam War. Also her younger sister would like to go into the same field.

3.  What do you plan to do for your summer 10 hour mentorship experience?

• For her summer ten hour mentorship experience she plans on shadowing her fathers friend, who works in the intelligence field. 

4.  What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations?

• In watching the 2-hour presentations she hopes to see similar topics, about the military. She expects to see background information and activities. 

5.  What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or senior project (or what additional information did you tell them about senior year or senior project)?

• Question: What advice can you give me in regards to the senior project?
• When it comes to the senior project, I would have to say to keep up with all the deadlines because if you don't you will fall behind tremendously. I would also have to say to keep up with the required hours, so that your will not become stressed with them at the end of the year.
• Question: What can you tell me in regards to the actual 4-core classes?
• The teachers rarely give you homework. Each teacher has there own class work, it is very important to keep up with the class work and try to finish it in class. 

Blog 22: Final Three Column Chart

Here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4z6UUMNQsEXM0paVGtPYmZHUzQ/edit?usp=sharing