During service week, I worked mostly on further research for my gender medicine checklist and testing bits and pieces of my oral rehydration solution. I didn't see either Mr. Burkett or Mrs. Peck over service week, so I plan to touch base with both of them at the beginning of next week. As I discussed in my previous journal entry, I'll be meeting with Mr. Burkett primary to discuss my oral rehydration tablet, and with Mrs. Peck to discuss my gender medicine checklist.
This past week, the NormaLyte packets that I had been anticipating finally came in. They certainly have higher salt content in terms of electrolytes compared to the NUUN sport tablets and the commercially available oral rehydration solution. However, they also taste like they have a higher salt content; when I interviewed a few of my close loved ones regarding their experience with trying the NormaLyte solution, while they reported it effective, they noted that the high salinity content is definitely noticeable and occasionally prevents the likelihood that they are to consume the product. With this in mind, it's a new focus of mine for my oral rehydration solution to achieve/work towards both goals of flavor/taste and efficacy.
With my gender medicine checklist, I've decided that I'm probably going to need to write a more comprehensive version than what I had originally planned. Before writing my first draft, I was under the impression that the inclusive and equity-driven questions I was looking for simply didn't exist within physician/patient paperwork. In light of the research that I've done so far, I'd argue that there are certainly bits and pieces of good checklist questions out there, but they've been snuck in at the bottom of a 10-page document, or offered as a formality, though never checked over by health care workers. My newest goal with my checklist is to offer not only something that brings more awareness and individualized care for the patient, but also to outline and present the checklist such that patients and physicians alike are aware of it's purpose in full, and thus inherently have their attention drawn to addressing the gender medicine aspect of healthcare.
This past week I've also met with Dr. Karen Asher, rather informally and not specifically about my personal project, but she brought it to my attention that many times female patients may also feel a certain pressure when speaking with a physician, which also makes me think that a checklist/form filled out privately may make them feel more comfortable. Thus, I'll make sure to write the second draft of my checklist such that the physician paperwork and the patient paperwork are exclusive of one another. While Dr. Asher and I were chatting, she also acknowledged that it'd be reasonable to consider that not all physicians make take an interest/care in a gender medicine checklist, which is surely something that I'm keeping in mind now. After all, how effective is an implemented form if it's not taken seriously. . .
This upcoming week, I'll be working on the second draft of my checklist and researching glucose in oral rehydration solutions in class, I'll be connecting with Mrs. Peck and Mr. Burkett, and I'll be trying out new compounds for my oral rehydration solutions at home.
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