Question. Persuade. Refer.

I went back to MedEx today!! I missed my MedEx family so much when I was out for three days. The first thing I noticed when I got back was that everyone noticed that I was gone! They treated me with such a warm welcome. Out of the 48 students in my tier, my peers still noticed that I was absent and that meant a lot.

From about 8 to 9:30, a Neuroscience speaker was supposed to come speak to my class, however, since that did not work out to plan, Harrison took over. It was a last minute task, but he did a great job teaching us about neurons, sodium- potassium gates, synaptic knob, and more. Since I took an anatomy class this past year, it was very easy to recall the information and I definitely understood it better. We asked him questions for what we didn’t understand, and he did a stellar job by re-explaining and answering our questions.

Right before lunch, we worked on our “Cradle To Grave” project. My group made the person out of saran wrap and tape. The process was actually very entertaining. We placed saran wrap on Lizzie, starting with her torso, arms, legs, and then thighs. After we put the saran wrap on we had to put the tape over it so it makes the shape of her body. Our process worked really well and it was pretty fun to do as a group.

After lunch, we came back and was sat down. I checked the calendar to see what we were doing next and it said “QPR training”. Before today, I had no clue what “QPR” meant. But after today, I don’t think I could forget. QPR means Question, Persuade, and Refer. Our interns told us that we are going to learn how to tell, by their language, if someone is having suicidal thoughts or actions. They also taught us how to talk and respond to them. Society usually is very afraid to talk about suicide. The topic gets jumped and ignored. But that needs to stop. Suicide needs to be talked about. It shouldn't be a topic that is ignored. People who are suicidal are not different from anyone else, we are all the same. However, somehow they are treated differently because of their mental health. See, I never really thought as strong about this topic as I do now, but just because one is going through a very rough and hard time to where they think they should no longer be alive, doesn’t mean they should be looked at as “selfish”, or “messed up”. We all have different problems in our life and everyone handles them differently and they all affect us in different ways. Suicide should be addressed and I'm very glad that I am now able to see how important of a topic it is.

QPR training was a difficult and emotional time for some of us. We ended the day by comforting and talking to each other. It ended on many and many laughs and hugs.