Partying Halloween weekend???

The Austin Police Department is starting up a program for the upcoming Halloween weekend. The new program involves drawing blood from any drivers suspected of being intoxicated. The drivers will first be given the usual option to take a breath test, however if he or she refuses the breathalyzer, the person will be required to have their blood drawn right there on the spot. While many people who are planning on partying downtown this weekend may not be all for the idea of being poked with a needle after a long night out of drinking, I think this program is a great idea to help and encourage everyone to have a much safer weekend. I understand many of us want to go out, dress up, and have ourselves a good time, but I do not think anyone’s fun should be at the expense of endangering someone else because of drunk driving. There are several accidents that occur every weekend caused by drunk driving. So, I think if the APD can enforce this program to be in effect for one of the busiest nights in downtown Austin, then that’s great! If this weekend turns out to have fewer accidents due to drunk driving, then I think the APD should consider extending is beyond just the Halloween weekend. If the APD were to do this then I think many people, especially those who are scared of needles and blood, would think twice about going out for the night without a designated driver.

K-12 Teachers not doing enough??

In an education blog about schools in Central Texas in the Austin American Statesman entitled Homeroom, a middle school teacher argues that many of the schools are asking their students the wrong questions. Patience Blythe, a teacher of three years at Garcia Middle School here in Austin, writes about her experience that led her to this argument. She describes that in her seventh grade advisory class, half of the black students and a very small number of the Hispanic students lived with both of their biological parents. Also, half of the students say that neither of their parents graduated high school and all of them have seen drugs in either their homes or neighborhoods. She then asked her students the question, ““If you could meet anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why?” She said one of the girl’s responses was that she would want to meet her mother. The girl says” I don’t know who she is. I ain’t never met her befo’”. Blythe asked her if she was adopted and the girl replied, “ I ain’t adopted! I live with my sister.” I like how she uses this conversation between the student and herself because the way the girl responded, not just her answer in general, but the vocabulary she used is a great example of the education level of those students. It shows that many students are far from achieving the goal of attending college. Blythe goes on with her argument saying that a huge problem is that they keep asking kids if they want to go to college or not, while all of them will raise their hands in saying “yes”, 60% of those kids will drop out. Blythe strongly urges that teachers need to quit asking the simple questions and start asking questions such as, “How can we help them get there?.”
I strongly agree with Blythe’s argument, I think her way of approaching the issue was very successful. I think the K-12 teachers need to do more to figure out how they can not only teach the students their basic subjects, but teach them how to become more successful on a more personal level so that they can go on to apply the knowledge they learn in the classroom.

Abusing the ER

Zachary Meisel and Jesse Pines are both practicing emergency physicians at the University of Pennsylvania. In Sunday’s commentary of the Dallas Morning News, Meisel and Pines claim that many people are going to the emergency room for reasons that are not really “emergencies.” They also have ways their own opinions as to what should be done to resolve this issue. Their argument is directed toward the general public.

One of Meisel and Pines reasons for these unnecessary trips to the ER is that people do not have good enough judgment to decide whether a headache or fever is a true emergency. They also state that despite the long waiting periods in emergency rooms, people would rather walk into the ER then wait for an appointment with their doctors, wait again for lab tests, and then wait yet again for another appointment to review and discuss the test results. They also believe a huge problem is that primary-care providers have little reason to tell their patients not to seek emergency care. I think all of their reasons are correct. I think many people take advantage of the ER when they should be leaving it for those who are in dying need of immediate assistance. All of their reasons and assumptions are made clear in their argument. eisel and Pines are able to get their point across to the reader and at the same time do not bore the reader with several statistics. They give facts and reasons that we could relate to. I think all of their reasons stated are true of the public.

After Meisel and Pines discuss all of their reasoning, they outline what they believe could be a cure for ER overuse. They believe a start would be to change the incentives to line up with rapid access to urgent and specialist care. They then go on to suggest that if the payment structure for primary care doctors was restructured so that doctors would get paid for the after hours calls, then patients would be encouraged from their doctors to call them first before taking a trip to the ER. Their last suggestion is that emergency rooms consider taking steps to change the law on medical exams, so that some ER patients could legally be turned away as long as they could get to their primary- care doctor within 24 hours. They conclude that if these fixes were to happen then we’d eliminate many of the high costs associated with health care. I think all of their suggestions are valid and reasonable. They give interesting suggestions that could really be made possible.

Overall, I agree with Meisel and Pines argument to rid the ER overuse. I think they did an excellent job with the layout of their argument and could get a good majority of the public to agree with them. I think if we truly considered some of suggestions, everyone would benefit from it.