What will you do when you got sick? See the doctor? Go to CVS to buy some medicine? Or just let your body heal by itself? The first thing I notice when I first come to Penn State is that when people here get sick, they just go to the CVS and buy some medicine then that’s all. It is kind of a culture shock for me because in Taiwan if we got sick we will go to see the doctor, no matter what time is it or how serious it is. We tend to go to see the doctor and let the professional see what is happening to us. After I understand why people here most likely go to CVS instead of the doctor it kind of makes me sad. That is the cost of seeing a doctor is extremely high and not that efficient compared to other countries. Plus the health care in the U.S is provided by businesses/companies instead of the government. So without the insurance, we might spend like hundred or thousand dollars for a cold. What is even worse is that if you have a fever in the middle of the night you most likely do not go to the doctor to seek help because visiting the emergency room for a hospital going to cost you an average of $2200. This make the insurance become really important. So let’s say you do have insurance. You still need to “scheduled” for your illness. This only make sense for me if you have some disease that is not acute. For example, a routine inspection. This makes me feel unbelievable. How do I know when I will get sick. If I get sick on Monday and want to go to UHS I can’t because I need to schedule ahead. If I really need it I must call them and ask them if there’s a spot to fit in face their bad attitude. I have to say it is really unreasonable.
I want to use two personal example from using the UHS. First time is when I sprain my ankle really badly, I can’t walk or stand at the time and I try to go UHS for medical support such as X-Ray to see what happen. The crazy thing is I can’t I will have to “schedule” a appointment like 2-3 days ahead in order to see the sprain my ankle three days ago? So I have to call them to ask for a spot and the person who pick up the phone at first REFUSE to put me into anyspot because I didn’ schedule ahead, after 5 minutes of explaining, she finally unwillingly put me in the list. The second one is last time when I feel like I might have mid ear infection but not sure, so I want to schedule an appointment for future in case it getting worse. That was a Friday, I look at the Monday spot and there are still available from 8am to like 5pm. So I think “okay, I will see how I feel and make an appointment tomorrow if it still hurt.” Guess what? The next morning (Saturday) when I try to make an appointment, all the Monday appointment was gone. How is that even possible? We are saying after 12 hours people suddenly all need to check their ear?
This make me find out the big issue of the University Health Service, and the solution of this will not be that hard. Having an actual option of “Same Day Appointment” (they do right now but it never actually let you have it at the same day). And a better service of the operator that really willing to help and willing to provide the help.
Process
- How is the healthcare work in U.S
- The average cost of for healthcare and health insurance
- How is the system right now
- appointment
- Difference with other country
- what can we learn from it
- strink to only school
- stat for school
- issue
- How it affect student willingness to see a doctor
- solution and way to fix it
- Cost for it and how long it will take
I think these are really good ideas for your draft! I think comparing Penn State to other schools would be an interesting way to discuss what Penn State can do better when it comes to Health Services. I also think that for your graphs you could compare health services here to ones at other schools.
1 Does the structure match the direction of the thesis. Are there gaps or missing parts? Is there a better order for this information?
I like the order of topics that you outlined. I think section 4 might fit better after 2 instead, but everything else looks like it flows nicely!
4. Ideas for infographs.
You could do an infograph that shows the cost of healthcare in the US vs. other countries, or you could also do one on the number of students who attend Penn State’s health services.