Personal Reflection

At the beginning of this class I did not know what to expect. I was very excited to learn about the course because I want to become an oncologist. As the class continued during this semester my grandfather lost his battle to stage 4, leukemia. During the course I was able to answer questions that my grandmother and my mother had pertaining to cancer. This class allow me to understand what happens to cancer patients. At the end of this class I was able to understand why cancer is so difficult to cure and what happens to the cell in order for cancer to develop. It also will allow me to explain to my grandmother what may happening to her during these next couple of months while she is being tested for cancer.

My transition into the cancer field began at that moment where I realized that I have a high risk of developing cancer due to my family's medical history. I decided to change my major from nursing to biology during my fall semester of 2013. After many nights of crying and trying to figure out how I could become a productive person in society while helping my family, friends, strangers and myself; I decided to dedicate myself to cancer. I decided to help the patients, the families, the friends and the society by studying biology to go to medical school to become an oncologist.

Personal Reflection

Outcomes

Sections

References

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DETAILS

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Personal Growth

This class allowed me to grow in many ways. While dealing with my grandfather’s finally steps towards the end of his life my wiliness to go to this class declined because it reminded me of the three deaths that I have been dealing with since my entry into college to very close family members of mines. Also, as the semester ends the trouble of knowing that I may have to go through the same cycle again with my grandmother is very scary because she may be the next cancer patient in my family. Even though this has been the most difficult semester to not drop out of I was able to look back at the semester and thank God for Dr. Dance and her ability to understand my struggles as I went a hardships.

I can say that I made it through this semester with the help and assistance of God because without him I do not know how I made it through this semester. This class showed me that I can make it through the worst because what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. This class along with my grandfather’s death allowed me to apply what I learned in class and explain it to everyone else in my family that did not understand it. I was able to see things from the medical side and experience the patient-family relationship. I felt like I was a miniature doctor in training.

Artifacts

Process Assignments

Rough Draft: Outcomes

The link to the left is the rough draft of my outcome assignment from the article. The process allowed me to understand how the article that I was given reflected each outcome of the class. As I went through the steps for it I had to revisit some chapters of the book. It also made me learn the different components of the outcomes and I developed a realization of how long the E-Portfolio was going to take. By completing this assignment I mastered the art of critically analyzing an article. The rough draft allowed me to start my rough drafter e-portfolio(second link). Some of my challenges include remembering what the article was about and going into detail about where to look for the outcomes in the paper.

This experience evolved as I went through the outcomes. I had to think long and hard about some outcomes. It also, required me to think outside of the box for some of the outcomes. Everything went according to plan expect for how long that I thought it was going to take to complete the outcome assignment. I need to improve on explaining the information in the most details. My success of completing this assignment is that I had time to complete it over spring break. My difficulties of this assignment was trying to figure out how some of the outcomes reflected in the paper. For this assignment I first read one outcome at a time and then went to search for it in the article (If I could not remember it). Next, I wrote how the article pertains to each outcome on paper. Lastly, I typed up the sections and uploaded them onto backboard.

Outline of E-Portfolio

Group 6 Article

Signature Assignment

Prezi for Group 6: PAH

I chose to select my Prezi of article #6 because I understood the article and it connected to biophysics and I understood and was able to apply it to everyday life. It helped explain the need for my career in oncology and why medical doctors are needed. Through the outcome assignment above it showed that I can apply the outcomes of the course to the paper. It allowed me to develop more logical thinking about the outcomes and the flow of the Prezi. Some of my strengths for the assignment include that I wanted to make my project different by doing a Prezi. One of my difficulties includes some of the malfunctions with the program because we corrected a word and saved it many times and it still came up incorrect on the day of the presentation. The project connects to the learning outcomes of the course and can be seen through the details in the above section.

During this assignment I learned how to interpret scientific journal articles and present them. These skills were reflected when the Prezi was presented. In the future I would make the article more interactive with the class and the prezi demonstrates my ability to learn how to analyze scientific articles. During this assignment I read the article and did an outline of the article. Once I completed the outline for the article I met up with my group member and compared and contrasted notes on information we did understand and did not understand. Then my group member went to the professor during office hours and asked questions. Once that was completed we assigned sections, created the Prezi and practiced it. This project connected to my outside experiences because I was going through the death of my grandfather and helped explain how he increased his changes of cancer by smoking. In return it created PAHs in his body and could have created cancer. This project connected to everyday because it explains and shows the importance of PAHs.

Reflection on Learning ( Overall)

In my medical sociology class we were assigned to do a PSA. I chose to do my PSA on the PAHs which relates to my group #6 article and the PSA focused on cancer and not smoking. I did not have time to go into detail about the outcomes for this class in 30 seconds. However, it would relate to the outcome of the gene mutations because PAHs change the DNA adducts and will create damaged DNA if not detected. The other class helped explain cancer disparities among patients and explains the mortality rate for cancer patients while this class helped explain the details of how and why these people are developing cancer. None of my assumptions and/ or understandings changed because I was very clear on what information I knew about cancer. The class helped explain in more details on a scientific level. The two assignments that have influence this class in my assignment of the 30 second video (below) and a paper (have not written yet).

In the future I would approach it differently by going into more detail about pathways in order to explain and or create a project for another class in order to educate the reader. The first video that we watch in class led to me wanting to learn more about how they affect the cell because ( for example) I did not know that smoking , regardless of what it is can cause cancer. This connected to Medical Sociology because I was able to create a PSA based off of the information gathered in this class. My first main learning event is the different types of PAHs and how we create them in the environment. The second event is when we explained how these events impact the cell and DNA adducts. The final event is how this DNA adducts impact the pathways that lead to cancer. These events stand out because I wanted to learn more about how burning candles lead to cancer. This helped created a future student learning style that shows that sometimes you have to think of the unexpected by do more research on the products that I am using before I buy them.