Final Proposal

The purpose of this research paper is to look at how information technology has impacted health care delivery in hospitals in the United States.  I obtained my information and research through the academic databases of Bemidji High School and Bemidji State University.  The results I found was that the job impact on a new wave of technology was hard to pinpoint and ambiguous because there was a wide variety of results throughout many hospitals.  Multiple research articles verified how information technology has made the delivery of healthcare more efficient,  more productive, and contrary to common belief, it strengthens communication between hospital staff and increases staff to patient face to face time.  The majority of the articles I found had many positive comments to make about information technology, but installing this type of infrastructure is initially very costly and requires a team of information technology personnel, nurses, and other management positions to have it run smoothly, which many small town hospitals do not have the resources and budget to do.  I will use this information I found through the databases and connect it with my interview with a registered nurse and a pharmacist to learn how their skill set had to expand, their forms of communication have changed, and in what ways they have noticed an increase in patient safety because of the changes in healthcare delivery over the 25 years working in a small, but growing city.  

Research Paper RD Proposal

For my research paper I am going to look at how technology has changed the delivery of health care in hospitals.  I will be looking at how it has changed the duties that the workers have to perform and the number of people needed to do certain tasks.  Another part of the delivery I want to look at is how the safety of prescriptions has changed due to the technology that has hopefully reduced the amount of human error.  One other type of delivery I would like to research is how smaller towns, such as Bemidji have been affected by the advancements in medical technology.  For instance I know that some of the radiologists for Sanford in Bemidji are on the other side of the world, reading the x-rays in their home, to give us a diagnosis.  I would interview both my parents for this paper.  My dad is a pharmacist and does the software for the hospital so his job and people he works with has changed dramatically over the 25 years he's worked at the hospital.  My mom has worked in a hospital for a long time as an RN.  She has worked both on the floor and in a director position.  My mom would have good insight in the changes of the hands on care of the patients and my dad would have good insight in the changes of safety for prescriptions and both know how small towns like Bemidji have changed to rely on more of the outside world for means of health care delivery.  For this paper I will be looking at medical research but also possibly set it up as a compare and contrast essay.

Heart of Darkness and Research Topic Idea

In the Heart of Darkness essay I am writing about how Conrad displays his value and belief that white men always need to hold power over the native Africans to, in their mind, fulfill their obligation to be a  leader to a group they view as uncivilized. I will go into detail about how the white men view the African people as undomesticated animals who are weak, powerless, and helpless. I was thinking of contrasting the physical feature descriptions of the Africans to the physical features of the white men, specifically Kurtz. I was going to use the quote when they describe his head to show how much everyone venerated him and all the power he held. Then I was going to tie these two descriptions and outlooks together to show how the white man's physical features let the reader know who is in charge and has power. But more importantly how they use that power to justify their invasion into Africa and disrupting the lives of the Africans because they do not operate the same way they do in Europe.

A topic for my research paper I was thinking of doing was how has technology changed the delivery of health care? I know its pretty general topic but I was thinking of looking at specific areas such as the positive and negative impacts on jobs, the level of safety in the production of drugs, and how little communities like Bemidji are in contact with people on the other side of the world for medical advise. Any suggestions to narrow it down would be great!

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the Africans are looked down upon and treated horribly by the white invaders coming into their nation so much so they are dehumanized.  A quote within the story portraying the dehumanizing attitude towards the black people is:  "A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants" (Conrad, 80).  The fact that the Africans were almost naked dehumanizes them because much like animals who show nothing but their skin, these people were not given the necessitates they needed to survive in the African climate.  If anything would happened to them due to the lack of clean and plentiful clothes, no one would particularly care.  This attitude relates to the way humans treat their animals.  Another way the reader sees dehumanization through this quote is by the way they refer to the black people as ants.  This shows the reader the attitude that the white people hold of themselves, they see themselves as ultimately powerful, far superior, mighty, and in total control of the course of the African's life.  The comparison to an ant shows how they view the Africans as powerless and insignificant.  They don't see these people as human beings they dehumanize them by allowing them to wear very little clothing and to be compared to an insect crawling on the ground.  Throughout Heart of Darkness the white invaders try to colonize African villages but they do it in a way that  focuses the power onto them so they are able to dehumanize these people in order to maintain this power.  

In Agatha McGee and the St. Isidore Seven and Rufus at the Door the main women in these stories play masculine roles to have authority and power over situations.  In Dodgers Return, the main character, Ross, fails to portray masculine traits making him appear to be weak and hold no significant value or power in the outcome of Dodgers life, even if he thinks he did.  Hassler indirectly states that you need to take on the male stereotypical traits of being bold and having control over situations in order to have any sort of power. Through these three stories John Hassler portrays the role of power only through characters who take on masculine roles.

Anniversary

In the short story Anniversary, Jon Hassler presents a man with the stereotypical need for control, but the story reveals the control he is fighting for is within himself.  

The narrator thrives on his control through using red ink:  "Red puts everything else in the background" (37, Hessler).  He used red ink to put his words, opinions, and thoughts above and in front of all others.  In a way it’s overbearing, but it is what he needs to feel as if he is in control.  He uses the power of the red ink to mask his feelings of aimlessness caused by the conflict within him.  The inner conflict, indirectly stated, is how he is dealing with stages of dementia.  This conflict prevents him from being able to remember much of anything anymore.  “Angeline’s? Who is Angeline?” (Hassler, 38).  This quote shows the narrator’s confusion and lack of memory because we later come to know that Angeline is his daughter-in-law.  What the reader infers through reading the letter that Angeline wrote to the narrator was that they were close and connected.  This is shown when her letter starts with “Dear Dad” (Hassler, 40).  By saying “Dad”, the reader can see the daughterly love and connection these two have.  The connection is weakened, if not nonexistent altogether because the narrator isn't in control of his own memories and doesn't even know who she is.  His character vs self conflict is different because he doesn't know he is dealing with it. But the reader picks up on it and it plays on our emotions because he can't remember certain important people in his life.  He desperately needs to reread letters and papers and mark them up with his red ink to maintain his authority over what he can still control. The narrator encompasses the  male stereotypical desire to be in control and through this character vs self conflict you see how far and what means he goes to maintain that sense of control.

To revise this paper I restated my thesis to make it clearer and I set it up more to talk about the rest of my paper.  I shortened my first quote to only say the most important part.  I realized by peer reviewing other people's papers, I had understood the story differently.  Instead of understanding it as the time was passing him by, I took it more literal and thought he had dementia.  So in my revision I really went into more detail and found examples to why I thought dementia was occurring. I really emphasized that aspect of the paper and tied the lens back in at the end better.  I chose this paper because it was the one that I put the most revision into to try to make my outlook on the story more understandable.  

        In the film “The Third Man” the director uses the actor’s positioning in the light and shadows to confirm the audience’s growing suspicion of the evil deeds Harry Lime does to maintain power and wealth.  

        About half way through the movie, the audience learns the truth of the horrifying actions Harry Lime does to make his money and to feel as if he is in power.  His fingerprints on viles prove he is responsible for diluting penicillin, which in turn kills the people who use it.  As the movie progresses Harry Lime’s image get worse and his power becomes less.  When Holly Martins finally is able to talk to him face-to-face, Harry’s body positioning reaffirms the evil image that was painted for the audience.  In this scene, Holly has his back facing the camera but his head is turned left in a way to subconsciously hint to the audience that he is harmful.  His body is casted under dark shadow, but his face is lit up from the sun shining through the windows.  The positioning of the shadow covering the majority of his body and the sly, confident way he talks to Holly in this confrontation represents the dark, evil actions he does to keep his power over people.  His confident voice reflects his attitude that he isn’t sorry for what he’s done, in fact, he thinks faking his death was genius.  When the bright sunlight covers only his face it can represent an interrogation room.  Harry is put on the spot by Holly and all the questions he imposes, just like an interrogation room.  When Harry finds out the police know that it isn’t him buried, the sunlight highlights the nervousness and lack of confidence that hits him in that moment.  In the smallest moment of panic the bright light is able to enhance that feeling of lack of power Harry Lime felt.  This lighting and body positioning confirms the evil picture painted of Harry throughout the movie, it shows how he used harmful ways to gain his power over others.