Dorothea Dix, Advocate for the Mentally Ill

Dorothea Dix was born in Maine in 1802.   Her father was a minister, and he and his wife raised Dorothea and her two younger brothers in poverty, sometimes sending Dorothea to Boston to her grandparents. After studying at home, Dorothea Dix became a teacher when she was 14 years old.   When she was 19 she started her own girls’ school in Boston.   William Ellery Channing, a leading Boston minister, sent his daughters to the school, and she became close to the family.   She also became interested in the Unitarianism of Channing.   As a teacher, she was known for strictness.   She used her grandmother’s home for another school, and also started a free school, supported by donations, for poor children. Struggling With Her Health At 25 Dorothea Dix became ill with tuberculosis, a chronic lung disease.   She quit teaching and focused on writing while she was recovering, writing mainly for children.   The Channing family took her with them on retreat and on vacations, including to St. Croix.   Dix, feeling somewhat better, returned to teaching after a few years, adding into her commitments the care of her grandmother.   Her health again seriously threatened, she went to London in hopes that would help her recovery.   She was frustrated by her ill health, writing â€Å"There is so much to do†¦.† While she was in England, she became familiar with efforts at prison reform and better treatment of the mentally ill.   She returned to Boston in 1837 after her grandmother died and left her an inheritance that allowed her to focus on her health, but now with an idea in mind of what to do with her life after her recovery. Choosing a Path to Reform In 1841, feeling strong and healthy, Dorothea Dix visited a women’s jail in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, to teach Sunday School.   She had heard of awful conditions there. She investigated and was especially horrified at how women declared insane were being treated. With the help of William Ellery Channing, she began working with well-known male reformers, including Charles Sumner (an abolitionist who would become a Senator), and with Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe, both educators of some renown.   For a year and a half Dix visited prisons and places where the mentally ill were kept, often in cages or chained and often abused. Samuel Gridley Howe (husband of Juliet Ward Howe) supported her efforts by publishing about the need for reform of the care of the mentally ill, and Dix decided she had a cause to devote herself to.   She wrote to the state legislators calling for specific reforms, and detailing the conditions she had documented.   In Massachusetts first, then in other states including New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, Tennessee and Kentucky, she advocated for legislative reforms.   In her efforts to document, she became one of the first reformers to take social statistics seriously. In Providence, an article she wrote on the topic generated a large donation of $40,000 from a local businessman, and she was able to use this to move some of those imprisoned for mental â€Å"incompetence† to a better situation. In New Jersey and then in Pennsylvania, she won approval of new hospitals for the mentally ill. Federal and International Efforts By 1848, Dix had decided that reform needed to be federal.   After initial failure she got a bill through Congress to fund efforts to support people who were disabled or mentally ill, but President Pierce vetoed it. With a visit to England, during which she saw Florence Nightingale’s work, Dix was able to enlist Queen Victoria in studying the conditions there of the mentally ill, and won improvements in the asylums.   She moved on to working in many countries in England, and even convinced the Pope to build a new institution for the mentally ill. In 1856, Dix returned to America and worked for five more years advocating for funds for the mentally ill, both at federal and state levels. Civil War In 1861, with the opening of the American Civil War, Dix turned her efforts to military nursing.   In June of 1861, the U.S. Army appointed her as superintendent of Army nurses.   She tried to model nursing care on that of Florence Nightingale’s famous work in the Crimean War. She worked to train young women who volunteered for nursing duty.   She fought doggedly for good medical care, often coming into conflict with the physicians and surgeons.   She was recognized in 1866 by the Secretary of war for her extraordinary service. Later Life After the Civil War, Dix again devoted herself to advocating for the mentally ill. She died at age 79 in New Jersey, in the July of 1887.

Study Strategies For Health Education - 876 Words

1. After reading the assignments for this week, discuss the impact of knowledge related to various populations and how this can impact your professional clinical practice The readings for this week’s assignment provides evidence that disparities persist in medical care for a number of health conditions and services in the diverse populations, which is impacted by their knowledge base. According to the article Strategies for Health Education in North American Immigrant Populations (2012) noted barriers that are included with diverse populations are cultural factors, which historical experiences and traditional practices shared with a group of peoples can prevent individuals from seeking health education and self-management of chronic†¦show more content†¦The focus in the clinical practice would be to reduce health care disparities and address the barriers that affect the individual’s health care outcomes. The most important strategy to promote health education is to be culturally sensitive, which includes as a clinician to have knowledge with social-cultural, religious, healthcare issues, and remove barriers that impede the indi vidual’s heath care (Zou and Parry 2012). Another strategy to facilitate health education is to remove language barriers. To improve health education with language barriers effectively would be to use a medically trained translator and not a family member. A clinician has to remind themselves that they are there for the patient and their needs. Using a medically trained translator, a clinician can be confident that the patient is receiving all of the information, able to ask and answer questions, and can feel confident that the patient understands all the health information and what would need to be addressed with further education. Trust is another health education barrier. Many African Americans are reluctant to participate in health promotion programs due to mistrust in the health care community (Butler-Ajibade, Booth, and Burwell 2012). As a clinician, to establish trust is an extremely important element to successfully promote health education in the African American co mmunity. To remove the trust barrier

The Health Care System Essay Example For Students

The Health Care System Essay More Nobel Prizes in physiology and medicine have been won by doctors or scientists working in the United States than the rest of the world. It is widely accepted that the best training and education is available in the United States in the field of medicine. Despite the fact that over $750 billion is spent on health care in the United States, more than 30 million Americans have no medical coverage and over 100 million are reportedly underinsured according to Nancy Watzman, of the WashingtonMonthly. We spend 14 percent of our Gross National Product (GNP) onhealth care each year, while our neighbors to the north, the Canadians, spend only nine percent of their GNP on the same but cover 100 percent of their citizens. If the Canadians can manage to cover every one of their citizens, then we, The People, must find a way to do the same. We have one of two options; either we can spend billions of dollars inventing a new health care system for the United States, or we can be frugal and effi cient by adopting the Canadian model of national health care and merelycustomizing it to fit our own needs. And, although critics may decry the prudence of implementing a system based on socialized medicine, therewould be minimal to no sacrifice in coverage, cost, and quality of health care as compared to what little health coverage we have today. If we model our system after the Canadians then this would mean all people share the same waiting rooms, the same doctors, the same equipment, and receive the same medical care. This also alleviates theproblem of some Americans receiving the best medical attention available in the world while others receive miserable attention or none at all. This idea of universal coverage sounds wonderful if you have no medical insurance currently, but it is unthinkable if you are accustomed to privaterooms in hospitals and hospital meals prepared by gourmet chefs. But if this is what you are accustomed to, you belong to a small minority of Americans. Only ten percent of Americans approve of our health care system, while 56 percent of Canadians approve of theirs (Goodman 35). Perhaps the disgruntled 90 percent majority could also vote the right people into congress to change the health care system to provide universal coverage here in the United States. We could not only provide universal coverage, but we could cover everyone at a lower cost for health care than we are currently paying. It actually costs less to supply medical coverage for the average Canadian than it does for the average American. A Canadian who earns the equivalent of $26,000 US dollars pays about $1,300 a year for medical coverage, while an American earning the same amount pays $2,500 per year according to Mark Kelly of the Chicago Tribune. And its not only the citizens who would save money. The General Accounting Office estimates conservatively that at least $68 billion could be saved in paperwork costs alone if the United States switched to a national health plan. That amount itself would be enough to pay for all the uninsuredcitizens in the United States with some money left over for lollipops for the kids. It may be argued that these cost savings will come at the price of quality of patient care, but that is just another myth propagated by the American Medical Association, which is easily debunked by f acts. If we take the $68 billion in administrative savings and subtract the estimated $12 billion it would cost to extend the same quality of care for theuninsured as the currently insured are receiving, we are left with $56 billion to do with as we wish. Furthermore, how can we even begin to talk about a decline in patient care when the numbers of the uninsured are so staggering? If over 130 million U.S. citizens, or over half of the United States population, are currently uninsured or underinsured and we provide them some kind of medical coverage, this in itself is a significant improvement in quality of care for these people. The fault lies with the doctors who are used to providing state of the art care for theeconomically advantaged while ignoring the Hippocratic Oath they took so many years ago and refusing to treat those who cannot afford to pay for services of such caliber. .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .postImageUrl , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:hover , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:visited , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:active { border:0!important; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:active , .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u5ed8b6c6e390e5f2991d7f5e18251bee:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Vegetarianism: Why it is the Better Choice. EssayLobbyists interests all too often overshadow the lip service initiatives shown by our representatives in congress towards health care reform. Even if we do not follow Canadas example to the tee, we are still better off taking the initiative to fix our inadequate health care system before it is beyond fixable status. It is unthinkable that over half of the citizens of the United States are not covered by health insurance or are underinsured. We should not be looking to other countries for medical advice concerning our country, being one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. Yet, the dismally decaying st ate of health care in the United States leaves us no alternative but to fix this problem quickly. To do so, we must look to our northern neighbors for help in the form of a basic plan for universal health care. After all, if a national health care plan is less expensive, provides health care for everyone, and the quality of health care improves for over half our citizens, then converting our present system to a more socialized one is the only viable option we have. If something is sick, it needs to be treated to allow it to heal. Our health care system is beyond sick: it is dying and it needs major surgery to recover.. BibliographyBradjan 5BibliographyWatzman, Nancy. Socialized Medicine Now-Without the Wait The Washington MonthlyOct. 1991:82-89Goodman, John C. An Expensive Way to Die National Review 16 April 1996: 34-38Kelly, Mark. A Doctor a Day Chicago Tribune 19 Jan. 1996: D18Allen, Paulette Hospitals in the Hot Seat Daily Herald 23 March 1995: C12Larry Churchill Self-Interest an d Universal Health Care: Why Well-Insured AmericansShould Support Coverage for Everyone. Harvard University Press, 1994. http://ccme-mac4.bsd.uchicago.edu/DPS/DPS16/churchill

Time To Kill Essays - A Time To Kill, Films, Rape,

Time to Kill Racism and Justice collide when the life of a ten-year-old black girl, Tonya Hailey, is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young white men , as they brutally beat and rape her. In John Grisham's novel rape, racism, and justice all prevail throughout the story A Time to Kill. Carl Lee Hailey, the father of the ten-year-old child takes justice into his own hands by murdering his daughters assailants. As his young defense attorney struggles with the law to save his clients life, racism spreads through the streets of Canton. ?She watched as he walked around the tree on her right side, and she stared at him as he stared between her legs. When he lowered his pants she turned to the left and closed her eyes. He was hurting her again.? The two men that had raped the black child, Tonya Hailey, had no respect for the black folks. When they selected their victim they did not care if she was a child, but yet the fact that she was black gave them more reason to take away her rights as a human. This is evident throughout the rape when one of the assailants, Cobb explained; ?...that she was not dead because niggers generally could not be killed by kicking and beating and raping. It took much more, something like a knife or a rope to dispose of a nigger.? (pg.2) After the two intoxicated and remorseless men were done with her, the mostly white town found out about this most inhuman crime. They reacted with shock and horror. ?We picked them up last night for rape.? ?Who'd they rape ?That nigger Hailey-- his daughter.? ?You're kidding! (pg.23) The people of the town could not believe that two of their white people could rape a young child. Not only the fact that she was black, but a ten-year-old child. Later on chaos erupted in the town of Mississippi after the father of the raped girl, Carl Lee Hailey took justice into his own outraged hands and murdered her two assailants. Racial tension in the town was already apparent, and excelled to more violent action against the black community after the murders. The people of the town that were white took several actions in trying to interfere with justice. Their first mission was to try and eliminate Carl Lee Hailey's attorney, Jake Brigance. The reason for their hatred towards him was because he was defending a black man in a racial community. As the trial grew deeper, a number of white towns people joined a group who despised blacks , known as the Kl Klux Klan (KKK). Joining together like this, gave them more power to continue their fight against the blacks and the people involved in the case. For ten days, with burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spreading through the streets of Clanton, the nation sat spellboun! d as a young defense attorney, Jake Brigance struggles to save his clients life -- and then his own. ?Hello,? answered Prattle. ?Who's this asked the voice. ?Deputy Joe Pintle. Who's this ?Where's the sheriff ?Asleep, I reckon.? ?Okay listen, and listen real good because this is important and I Ain't calling' again. You know that Hailey nigger ?Yeah.? ?You know his lawyer, Brigance ?Yeah.? ?Then listen. Sometime between now and three A.M., they're gonna blow up his house.? (pg.272) As the trial progresses Jake found the only way to save his clients life would be a plead for insanity. His argument would be that Carl Lee Hailey was not in the right frame of mind, he was so hurt and outraged by the rape of his daughter he felt it was the only way to end her pain and his anger. To prove this, Jake's main witness was a psychiatrist who had the highest credentials in the state of Mississippi. Until the prosecutor, Mr. Buckley, discredited the psychiatrist. ?Dr. Bass, have you ever been convicted of a felony ?Of course not!? Bass answered loudly, desperately. ?Are you certain Buckley thundered. ?Of course I'm certain,? Bass protested. ?You're certain Buckley asked. ?Yes,? Bass answered through clenched teeth. ?You're telling this jury that on October 17, 1956, in Dallas, Texas, you were not convicted of a felony under the name of Tyler Bass. No answer. ?You're telling this jury that on October 17, 1956 you were