SSC495: Short Answer Question Choices

Choose two of the following four questionsto answer in the take-home component of your last assignment. These answer are due by (12:30 pm on Wednesday, April 27) and should be turned in to the turnitin.com link in the “turnitin.com assignments” folder on Blackboard. Each answer is worth 20 points. (Rubric is below)

1. A patient’s “compliance” with what a healthcare provider recommends or prescribes is an issue that came up many times in class. Using at least two readings from class, please explain why compliance is more complex for patients than simply doing what a provider tells a patient to do. Your answer should be 200-300 words long (approx. 2-3 paragraphs). Please use in-text citations in MLA format, but a “works cited” page is not necessary.
2. After spending this semester examining the history of health, disease and the health professions in the United States, how would you say this history is relevant and/or useful to people practicing in our current healthcare system? Use at least two readings from class as you answer. Your answer should be 200-300 words long (approx. 2-3 paragraphs). Please use in-text citations in MLA format, but a “works cited” page is not necessary.
3. Historian and pediatrician Chris Feudtner coined the phrase “dangerous safety” to describe the experience of having diabetes. Describe what that phrase means, and compare and contrast this experience of diabetes with another illness.Use at least two readings from class as you answer. Your answer should be 200-300 words long (approx. 2-3 paragraphs). Please use in-text citations in MLA format, but a “works cited” page is not necessary.
4. Atul Gawande, surgeon and writer, discussed the challenges of not being able to “fix” all patients as he presents a documentary examining end-of-life care. What does this film show us about our current healthcare system? Use at least two readings from class as you answer. Your answer should be 200-300 words long (approx. 2-3 paragraphs). Please use in-text citations in MLA format, but a “works cited” page is not necessary.

READINGS FROM CLASS

Case Study of Tuberculosis: Medicine and Drug Resistance   Reading: Keshavjee, Salmaan, and Paul E. Farmer. “Tuberculosis, drug resistance, and the history of modern medicine.” New England Journal of Medicine 367.10 (2012): 931-936.

Case Study of Tuberculosis: Compliance and Context   Reading: Abel, Emily K. “Taking the cure to the poor: patients’ responses to New York City’s tuberculosis program, 1894 to 1918.” American Journal of Public Health 87, no. 11 (1997): 1808-1815; Ho, Ming-Jung. “Sociocultural aspects of tuberculosis: a literature review and a case study of immigrant tuberculosis.” Social science & medicine 59, no. 4 (2004): 753-762.

Race and Medicine   Reading: Rogers, Naomi. “Race and the politics of polio: Warm Springs, Tuskegee, and the March of Dimes.” American Journal of Public Health 97.5 (2007): 784-795.Malebranche, David. “Learning about medicine and race.” Health Affairs 23, no. 2 (2004): 220-224.

Gender and Medicine:   Reading: Bueter, Anke. “Androcentrism, feminism and pluralism in medicine. Topoi 36.3 (2017): 521-53o.Nordell, Jessica. “A fix for gender bias in health care? Check.” The New York Times (Jan 11, 2017).   Recommended: Shah, Tina, Nicolas Palaska, and Ameera Ahmed. “An update on gender disparities in coronary heart disease care.” Current atherosclerosis reports 18.5 (2016): 28.

Chronic Disease, Compliance and Stigma: The Examples of Diabetes and Obesity   Reading: Feudtner, Chris. “the Predicaments of ‘Dangerous Safety’: Living with Juvenile Diabetes in 20th-Century America.” Western Journal of Medicine 173.1 (2000): 64767.Thibodeau, Paul H., Victoria L. Perko, and Stephen J. Flusberg. “The relationship between narrative classification of obesity and support for public policy interventions.” Social Science and Medicine, 141 (2015): 27-35.

Group Presentations Due

Epidemics, History and Global Health: Smallpox and Polio   Reading: Rasenberger, Jim. “City Lore: a City I the Time of Scourge.” New York Times (April 6, 2003) https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/nyregion/city-lore-a-city-in-the-time-of-scourge.htlm)Closser, Svea, “Why Eradicating Polio is More Complicated Than it Seems. Sapiens (July 11, 2018) (https://www.sapiens.org/culture/polio-eradication-pakistan/)RECOMMENDED: “History of Smallpox”: https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html

Epidemics, History and Global Health: AIDS and COVID   Reading: Francis, Donald P. “Deadly AIDS policy failure by the highest levels of the US government: A personal look back 30 years later for lessons to respond better to future epidemics.” Journal of Public Health Policy 33.3 (2012): 290-300.Brandt, Allan M. “How AIDS Invented Global Health.” New England Journal of Medicine. 368, no. 23 (June 6, 2013): 2149-2152.Barr, Justin, Richard A. MacKay, and Deborah Doroshow. “The Dangers of ‘Us Versus Them’: Epidemics Then and Now.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 36.3 (2021 795-796.   Recommended: AIDS timeline: https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline

Current Pressing Issues: Palliative Care   Reading: Tulsky, James A. “Improving quality of care for serious illness: findings and recommendations of the Institute of Medicine report on dying in America.” JAMA internal medicine 175.5 (2015): 840-841.   Media: Being Mortal

Current Pressing Issues: Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment   Reading: Hoffman, Jerome R. and Richelle J. Cooper. “Overdiagnosis of Disease: A Modern Epidemic.” Archives of Internal Medicine 172.15 (2012): 1123-1124.Martin, Stephen A., Scott H. Podolsky and Jeremy E. Greene. “Overdiagnosis and overtreatment over time.” Diagnosis 2.2 (2015): 105-109.

Grading Rubric for the Short Answer Questions (Each Worth 20 points) 

Analysis (8 points) 

• Did you fully answer all parts of the question? 
• Did you provide clear and thorough analysis? 
• Did you provide a clear thesis?

Evidence/Proof (8 points) 

• Did you provide relevant, accurately-used examples from Brandt and/or other readings from class? 
• Did you provide page numbers and (possibly) short quotations to prove your answer? 
• Was your use of sources accurate and clear?? 

Writing (4 points) 

• Punctuation, grammar, spelling 
• Proper sentence structure 
• Well-organized paper with clearly-defined paragraphs 
• Correct MLA formatting and word count