Crafting it up!

This morning started off with lots of research for our "Cradle to Grave" projects. We had to make sure that we had all the information that we wanted to present along with setting up our model. It was pretty difficult to put clay organs into our tape model, since also it wouldn't hold too well, so we decided that we would just lay them on the table when it comes time to present. We are getting pretty nervous to present but we know we'll do great.

​

After we did research, Dr.Epright, a professor on medical ethics, came to speak to us about ethics and how ethics is handled in a medical situation. Many times siblings fight over how to handle their loved ones and they all have different opinions. Dr. Epright would handle the situation by getting them all together and talking it through. I never thought that we job ever existed but it does. It was really interesting to hear about how she feels about many situations. Right as she started speaking, she started out asking us questions. I love when speakers engage in conversation rather than PowerPoint presentations. She asked us how we define ethics, a word that we use at least once a month. Yet, no one came to an answer straight away. After talking about her career and the various places she teaches, including Furman University, she gave us an example of a case that heavily involves medical ethics. The case discussed a woman in 1993 who gave birth to conjoined twins with severe deformities; the twins had little to no chances of surviving, but the parents still chose to have a surgery causing one of the twins to die. Dr. Epright put us in groups where we discussed our opinions on the case and how we would approach it. Our group came to a decision which was not to of had the surgery at all. Although this may seem harsh, we had factors that led us to our decision. For one, it was medically futile, one of the twins was sacrificed to save the other, and the money and time invested in this futile case could have been invested elsewhere such as cases where there were higher survival rates. It was definitely odd talking about money at first, since money really can't compare with ones life, however as we talked more about it, more lives could have been saved and at the end of the day, money is a huge factor. Each group shared how they felt and what led them to their decision. Before we knew it, after a long few hours discussing, it was lunch time!

​

Towards the end of the day, Christine told us that we will be going over to the hospital to hand out flowers to everyone for mental health awareness. Since we had so many of us, we split into 2 groups. I was group 2. When group 1 came back, they told us to not even worry about our balloons. We were a bit confused since we spent lots of time on it. They later told us that the security guards popped all of the balloons that they made since we were not 18 or older. This hurt because they did it right in-front of them and they also did it with a smile. I was always taught to kill them with kindness so me and Sammy Mosher took a flower to them and told them to have a wonderful day. Now, that felt good. We also handed flowers to patients coming out of the hospital, their family members or children that they had with them. They were all so happy to receive something as simple as a flower. Acts of kindness can go such a long way, especially when you don't know what anyone is going through. I loved making people happy today.