Universal Health Care as a Real Possibility for the U.S.

This article says U.H.C. is possible. I think so too.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1498

Best Sources

Appendix: Birth Can Safely Take Place at
Home and in Birthing Centers
The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services:
Mayri Sagady Leslie, MSN, CNM
Amy Romano, MSN, CNM

This article, which is actually an appendix provides a lot of useful statistics surrounding home births and birthing centers. These statistics will be useful in my (planned) pro-home/birthing centers argument because they present the information in that fashion.

Episiotomy, Hospital Birth and Cesarean Section: Technology gone haywire.
Cohain, Judy Slome | Midwifery Today
and
Getting Back to Nature: Non-Medical Birth Options in Athens, Greece.
Nusbaum, Julie | Midwifery Today

These articles are complimentary, as they both highlight the dangers of mothers opting for, or getting a medical recommendation for cesarean sections. The first article has most of the information useful to me, and the second shows how home births and more natural trends are occurring in another part of the world also.

Domesticating Birth in the Hospital:
“Family-Centered” Birth and the Emergence of “Homelike” Birthing Rooms Maria Fannin

This is the most comprehensive article I have seen about birthing centers, how they got started, and their popularity over the years. It also goes into the controversy of home versus hospital births, and the way that birthing centers offer an "in-between" option.

Trials of Labour : The Re-Emergence of Midwifery
Burtch, Brian | McGill-Queen's University Press

This ebrary book is based on studies done in Canada, which gives yet another example of how this trend is occurring worldwide (in developed countries). This is a good source because it describes how midwifery went into a decline after the spread of hospitals and is now re-emerging.

My Research Paper Topic

For my research paper, I will be exploring the benefits and disadvantages of both the hospital birthing process versus the at-home birthing with a midwife. I will also provide some insight into the global popularity of each process as well as their histories.

Self-Motivation and Smiles

I have always had an inquisitive, questioning mind, and science has always been there to quench my thirst for answers to the unanswerable. I can vividly remember some of the defining moments that drew me into the intrigue of science. “Raising” mealworms to beetles in kindergarten, making rock candy out of sugar water in first grade and dissecting owl pellets in third were all experiences that were far more exciting to me than any other activities that we did in elementary school.

As my interest in science grew, so did my parents’ approval and pride in my achievements in science and math. The encouragement for me to pursue a career in science probably far preceded my knowledge of its existence. Even though I believe much of my current decision to pursue a career in health is based on my own motivation, there is certainly the underlying factor of the expectations from my parents.

My very first, somewhat thought-out career interest came to me when I was about nine or ten. I loved bugs, bug facts, and anything of that nature. So, my mother purchased me a variety of books on the topic, upon my request. I must point out that my mother was quite frugal, until it came to academics. If I had demonstrated equal interest in dancing and being a ballerina, I am almost certain that my desire for related books would be met with a half-hearted proposition to go to the library. Luckily, my desire was for insects and crawling things of that sort, and I read in one of the books that there was in fact, a person whose job it was to look for and study bugs all day long. For the next year or two, when met with the question, “And what do you want to be when you grow up?” I would straighten up and clearly respond, “An entomologist.”

Over the course of my middle school and high school years, my career interests were: a veterinarian, a zoologist, a doctor, a psychologist, and a pediatrician. Interspersed between these science-related careers were a few short-lived ambitions (florist, chef, fashion designer, and singer) that did not elicit the desired response of encouragement and pride from my parents. Being that I was, and to a point still am, that little girl who just wants her parents to smile proudly upon her, I stuck with the sciences.

When college application time came around in my senior year of high school, I was pretty sure I wanted to major in Biology because of my positive experiences with great Bio teachers throughout my life as well as the emphatic excitement of this prospect from my parents. However, my interpretation of declaring a major was more of a way to create an extension of an existing strength or interest as opposed to a path that will give you the knowledge for a specific career.

When I clicked that dropdown box on the online applications, or perused through the long lists on the paper applications, the vast number and types of majors both astounded and worried me. There I was, with only seventeen years of life experience (of which about six or seven really count toward a situation like this) and now I was to choose how to spend the next four years plus, and quite possibly the rest of my life. As I scrolled through novel (to me) majors like American Studies, Armenian Language, and Bilingual Education, I stopped at good-old, clear-cut, make-my-parents-proud, Biological Sciences. After the stress of applications, majors, deadlines, and scholarships, I was pleased to find out that I had been accepted to the University of Southern California.

Within my first year as a freshman majoring in Biological Sciences, I discovered that the intellectual journey I would have in this major did not allow for many electives, and the only significant reprieve would be the general education classes. This one-track education was not what I expected from my university experience. I wanted my future self to emerge as a well-rounded, sophisticated, and interesting.

Before the end of my first semester, I decided that I still liked Biology, but I liked a lot of other subjects too. I had to muster up a lot of courage to tell my parents that I was “going to take a lot of the same classes, but have more flexibility under a different major—Health and Humanity.” I was met with a lot of resistance that I believe was my parents’ disappointment that I had not continued to pursue a Bachelors of Science degree. Yet, later my mother told me that she was only trying to make sure that I was making the change for a good reason. And a good reason it was. Health and Humanity, with an emphasis on health and the mind would provide me with the technical side of the science that initially intrigued me, as well as the sociological and psychological aspects that allows one to relate the technicality to the individual on a personal level.

I am now looking in the direction of Healthcare Management, because of its importance to the health field as a whole as well as the convenience of working business hours. I feel that I have reached a happy medium in my career pursuit that will make me proud of my personal and educational accomplishments as well as put those smiles on my parents’ faces.

The Phoenix

I have been fortunate to not have a personal story of injury of illness to tell of thus far. Yet, when my fiance got into a major car accident last year, I felt as though I too had been injured. When I met Rosario in high school, he was the only sophomore I knew that had a car. Over the years, I learned that he was a fairly safe driver--at least when I was in the car. If you compared our driving record at the time, I would seem to be the reckless driver, seeing as I crashed my very first car after a little over a month. It was a low impact collision, but nonetheless an experience I do not want to relive. On a windy evening in late November, I had to face the possibility that my fiance may not live at all.

I had just finished a conversation with Rosario about him meeting up with my parents for dinner that night. As he was leaving his house, he was explaining to me that he was running late and hoped he would make it there on time. I didn't think much of it, just that hopefully he wouldn't keep my parents waiting. Besides, there wasn't much I could do to help. I was in Los Angeles attending college, and he was in Northern California where we grew up. So, after I hung up with him, I called my mother to let her know the situation. As I was getting ready to wrap up the dialogue with her, I received another call. We said our goodbyes, and I was surprised to see Rosario calling me again. However, when I answered the voice was not that of my hurried fiance that I had spoken to only minutes before.

The voice on the other end was awkward and hesitant as they struggled to get to whatever point they were trying to get across. I was quite a annoyed that this strange person was not making much sense, and not handing the phone to Rosario. The man was speaking too slowly for my growingly bewildered state. Suddenly, in the midst of my demands to give Rosario the phone, the man broke from his calm demeanor and said, "Rosario just got into a car accident!" I was silent for only a moment before my fear masked as skepticism took hold of me. I began to furiously question the man's identity and why he would joke about such a serious matter.

"I am not joking. I am a friend of Rosario's. He just went over the side of the highway on 101 South. He's going to be okay though." The man's eerie placidity returned and made me even more panicked. So many questions tore through my mind as the overwhelming feeling of terror and helplessness washed over my body in a cold wave. The fact that this man was talking, and not Rosario was an immediate indicator that his last statement regarding Rosario's well-being was likely a emotionally protecting facade. A facade that clearly did not live up to it's intentions because I burst into a fit of tears as I began pacing the room and demanding to talk to my fiance. The man then told me to calm down, and that he had to get off the phone because the ambulance had arrived. As soon as he hung up, I fought through tears to try and pack some things into a bag so I could make the six hour drive to Northern California.

By the grace of God, I arrived five and a half hours later to find that Rosario was in stable condition. It was hard to see his body look so fragile all bandaged up, his face so swollen he was hardly recognizable. His recovery from that day forward had been tough, but he healed faster than anyone would have expected from the victim of a car crash that left a Honda Civic crushed like a can. Since then, I have gained such a grateful attitude toward every automotive trip I take, and I cherish every day that I am able to have Rosario with me alive and healthy. I thought I knew before, theoretically, how fleeting life is. Now, I truly know that life can be unpredictable and short but there are a few who are blessed with the rare opportunity to rise from the flaming ruins and live.