Week 5: Rethinking the Western Health Services -Brittany Carlson

            In preparation for this week’s discussions, we read “Sick Woman?” by Johanna Hedva from Open In Emergency; “Tarot Card: The Devil” from the Open in Emergency box and “‘You Are Here’: Locating ‘Spirituality’ on the Map of the Current Medical World” by Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan. In“Sick Woman?” from the Open In Emergency box, Johanna Hedva discusses her chronic illnesses, the Sick Woman Theory, and her criticisms of the Western medical-insurance industrial complex. This relates to the theme of the week by exposing the flaws in modern day Western health services and the need for them to be restructured. The tarot card, “The Devil” from the Open In Emergency box represents the oppression of Asian Americans inflicted upon them by society. This can be related to the theme of the week by showing that this oppression can be seen in modern day Western health services. In “‘You Are Here’: Locating ‘Spirituality’ on the Map of the Current Medical World” by Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan, the review discusses the chaplaincy process and that builds up the self-awareness of the chaplain in order to increase their deep listening skills to provide empathetic and embodied care to be able to train physicians for situations involving spiritual care and talks about the effects that the expansion of spirituality into the medical field may have. This is related to the theme of the week because it shows a way that spiritual aspects may be incorporated into modern day Western health services. This week, I particularly liked the reading by Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan because I believe that incorporating a spiritual aspect into modern day medicine would be a great idea to pursue. I know that when I was hospitalized with a case of pneumonia that almost killed me, it was because my body and my spirit were weak and repressed and I feel that if some type of spiritual healing could have been incorporated into my treatment from the Western health service industry, I may have been able to heal faster because my suppressed immune system and lack of spiritual stability was what caused me to become sick in the first place. We were also asked to read two articles about the safety of Wi-Fi in schools and come up with some questions for our guest speaker. The questions that I thought of that might be interesting to ask were, “Are there any ways to possibly reverse some of the negative effects that have already been accumulated from the exposure to EMF waves?” and “Why do you believe that the idea of the, “10 Elements of an Electromagnetically Clean and Conscious School” are not being utilized?”

Question: What could be some of the negative impacts associated with incorporating spiritual aspects into modern medicine?


Literature Cited:
Johanna Hedva. “Sick Woman?” ​Open In Emergency.
Open in Emergency. “Tarot Card: The Devil.”
Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan. “‘You Are Here’: Locating ‘Spirituality’ on the Map of the Current Medical World.”
Cindy Russel. “Wi-Fi is Schools: Are We Playing It Safe With Our Kids?”

Brian Spero. “Is Wi-Fi in Schools Safe?: Putting EMF exposure on your radar of potential health risks.”
Media Cited:

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