Post #5: TIL, Career Exploration

Today I learned a lot about the career or an orthopedic surgeon. I chose this career because in 7^th grade my school held a career fair and one of the speakers was an orthopedic surgeon. He talked about all of the things he got to do during an average day and I thought it all sounded interesting, so I decided that day that I wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. During an average day, surgeons preform an average of 2-5 surgeries per day. They are also typically in charge of making the final decision of whether a patient needs surgery. To become a surgeon you need 4 years of premed and/or another bachelor’s degree, 4 years of med school, and then 3-7 years or residency. For an education at a decent school it costs $30,000-55,000 per year. Although college is expensive, the career of a surgeon is projected to grow 18% between 2012 and 2022 and the average surgeon makes $187,200 per year or $90 per hour.

                                     

Post #4: TIL, National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs)

The NPSG's were Established to help accredited organizations address specific areas of concern in regard to patient safety. They were enacted in 2003 to reduce the risk of preventable accidents from happening. It was created and is overseen by the Joint Commission, a group of several different medical professionals that work in different medical professions. The first set of NPSG’s were developed in 2002, based upon data from their Sentinel Event Database. The Sentinel Event Advisory group reviews data and makes a recommendation to the Joint Commission. The goal is to promote specific improvements in patient safety.

Post #3: Today I learned: HIPAA

          Today I learned many things about HIPAA. However, there are 3 things that seem to stick out. The first thing is who regulates HIPAA. It is regulated by the government, but more specifically it is regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The second thing is what a breach is, and it is just a violation of HIPAA. Some examples of how to avoid a breach are: only discussing patient’s information in a private area, not sharing your access code, avoid leaving documents unattended, and many more. And lastly I learned the fines for breaching HIPAA. The minimum fine is $100, the maximum is $50,000, you can receive 1 year of jail time if the breach is criminal, and you can be blacklisted if you breach HIPAA.

         

         It is VERY important to follow HIPPA regulations as a health care professional. If you don’t follow the set rules, you will receive one of the punishments listed above. In addition, if coworkers or patients find out that you broke HIPAA they will not respect you at all and your patients won’t be able to trust you, and trust is one of the most important things in the health care field. 

Post #2: TIL, Professionalism - 9/9/15

Today I learned about the different aspects of professionalism, a few quick tips for technology, and how to research effectively:

Professionalism has many aspects to it, but there are a few key words that sum up most of what professionalism means the best: Integrity, respect, and maturity. The first of these, integrity, will lead tot people being more willing to trust you with things and giving you mores responsibilities. The second is Maturity. Having maturity in the work place will lead to you gaining the respect of your patients and co-workers. This leads to the final key word that describes professionalism, and that is respect. if you have respect for others than they will have respect for you, also patients will feel more comfortable with you which is very important in the medical field.

I also learned a few cool things that can help me on the computer. If I press Ctrl 1 it single spaces what I'm writing, but if I press Ctrl 2 it double spaces my writing. I also learned how to embed things to my blog which is important because that's how I get graded, but it also makes my blog more professional and more interactive. In addition to embedding and Ctrl 1 and 2, I learned what bubbl.us is and how it can help me organize my thoughts and again make things look more professional.

Lastly, I learned a few ways to research effectively. The first is that if a website has .edu or .gov or .org it is more likely to have information that will be helpful and is more likely to be reliable. I also learned that if you go to a website you can search for certain words by hitting Ctrl+F. This is good for when there is a lot of information on a page and you are looking for a few specific things.

Post #1: A Bit About Myself

My name is Jared Cassoutt. I like to do a lot of things: I play hockey and lacrosse for the Papillion teams, I am in Papillion South’s varsity show choir, Titanium, and I play intermural Flag Football and basketball, and I am an officer for HOSA. My favorite subjects are math and science.

I am interested in being an orthopedic surgeon, but while at the Health Academy, I hope to learn more about the careers in the medical field and either confirm my career interest, or find a new career that fits me better. After high school I hope to go to college (looking at Duke, Stanford, and Michigan) and maybe play lacrosse there while getting my M.D.