103 Reflections on Learning
The goal of this learning portfolio is to demonstrate and reflect growth throughout this course. Reflecting to me means that I can take a second to slow down and just sit with the content. It allows me to take what we have learned in class and combine it with personal experiences to decide what the topic means to me.
Prompt: What do I know now about AI?
September 7, 2023
AI is something that I had never used before, nor have I ever once had a teacher tell me to pull up Chat GPT in a class or heard of that occurring in another class. All I hear is about how friends at other colleges have to handwrite papers to ensure that they are not using some form of AI to cheat on an assignment. This class has encouraged me to look at the benefits and downfalls that AI has and can bring, as well as think about how we can use it as a tool to facilitate learning.
The first question I pose is how can AI help you? It is very useful in connecting you to information. Just go and ask Chat GPT for a scientific source on a specific topic and it will pull it up for you. Finding the facts is what AI does best. Can’t find a scholarly source on a topic? Ask AI to do it for you. It has the ability to comb through millions of sources in seconds while it would take you days or weeks to go through the same amount of information. But where AI falls short is in analysis and adding the human touch. Go and ask it to compare two things for you. It will give you the most general summaries of the two topics and leave it at that. It cannot dive deep, so to speak unless there is already a similar analysis on that topic somewhere else on the web. Additionally, it does not have the ability to add human experience or emotions. AI can mimic emotion, but it still seems to sound robotic and not real. It cannot empathize or feel like we can.
Using AI can definitely be helpful, but you have to acknowledge that it does not have the full ability to be a human because it cannot feel emotions. Its benefits come from the ability to process through massive amounts of data but its detriments are in its inability to analyze and emote.
Active Listening: Practice and Reflect
September 14, 2023
This week, we were asked to practice what we have learned on active listening and reflect on how it has changed our conversations. Active listening is more than just paying attention to the conversation. It is being fully present and being engaged. You listen try and understand rather than respond. Over the period of 36 hours, we were asked to test out active listening and report on who we talked to, what they talked about, how they reacted to our active listening, what happened differently because of active listening, and what was the challenge with this task.
My conversations were with my two roommates, Ella and Seren, and with my mom. With Ella, I discussed potential apartment places for the next year, with Seren, I talked about the physics exam that she had, and with my mom, I discussed my dog and how her pickleball match went. Ella and Seren both thought it was weird that I was paying so much attention to them because typically I am multitasking or on my phone. Since we live together, a lot of our conversations are just in passing so I don’t need to pay full attention. With my mother, nothing was different because I always Facetime her and I actually find it easier to pay full attention since I do not have my phone to distract me. Something that was different was that I found myself remembering more details about the conversations. They felt odd at first but they also appreciated that I was caring so much about little interactions. The most challenging part was that I found it hard to not go on my phone. Especially with my roommates, we always have interactions where we pay little attention to the conversation. I also found it difficult to not interject my opinions or say “me too” in the convos.
Burnout, Stigma, and Shame
September 21, 2023
Caregiver burnout is the inability to continue to be a caregiver in a safe way to them and the person receiving care due to increased stress and anxiety. We often see caregiver burnout in places where there is a lack of control. Like during the pandemic, nurses would know that not all of their patients would survive and there were very high levels of burnout during this. Something specific that stuck with me this week was the fact that storytelling can be used as an outlet to prevent burnout. By telling stories to each other, you can relate to others and lessen that feeling of isolation.
We also spent a significant amount of time focusing on stigma and shame in healthcare for both the patients and the doctors. By listening to stories about patients with AIDS being treated differently, even in a progressive city in 2017, we can see the impact that diagnoses have on people. A dental hygienist should know that they cannot catch HIV from a dental cleaning. Just like a psychiatrist should not be afraid to ask for help when experiencing depression symptoms. The process of storytelling allows us to relive experiences through the lens of a different person. We can feel their shame and pain as well as their joy and happiness.
Why does medicine need art?
10/10/2023
If someone says to you, “Medicine and art are two separate things. there’s no real connection between them because few of us are artists.” How would you respond, based on last week’s experiences?
This past week, we explored, as a class, three different avenues of how medicine incorporates art. The first was a TED Talk by Jill Sonke on how she began to incorporate dance as a form of therapy into medicine. She gave various examples of how dancing improved the quality of life in people with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The second was an exhibit in the University of Iowa Main Library called “Hey buddy, I’m Bill.” This told the story of Bill Sackler, a man whose life was dictated by the history of disability rights in the US through a series of objects, words, and images. Lastly, we heard a talk from Andrea Wilson, who used her background in storytelling and writing to help people examine and rewrite stories they have heard about themselves in narrative therapy. The most memorable of the three was Andrea Wilson’s talk.
Narrative therapy essentially takes the problem out of the person and examines it separately. The behaviors are then seen as separate from the person, not an inherent “problem” within them. You then look at your story from an observer’s perspective and try to find agency within your life. The most surprising part about this was how using cultural and historical contexts can help you find your place. The pandemic was something that affected everyone, but narrative therapy would help you find your voice within something that takes away all your choices. Finding your own pathway and meaning within your life is the main goal of narrative therapy.