Hoffman Ch.1-5

What I found interesting was the Rights to Refuse chapter. Just after reading the first story, and the trial I was shocked. The thought of a hospital refusing to take care of someone ill or dying is just crazy to think about. If we lived in a world like that with health care systems that could deny saving a person would be ridiculous. This shows that clearly health care systems and hospitals have a lot of things to improve on and rules and regulations to make a great hospital. Since we know that even then hospitals were very expensive to build and work, one would think that hospitals would not refuse people if they have a certain illness because they would want the money for the bills more. I think this law was a horrible law and I don't agree with it at all and I'm glad hospitals don't do things like that today.

Technology in the Hospital: 6-end

Before reading this book, I had no idea what blood counting was. If I had to take a guess about what it was before reading the book, I would have guessed it was counting blood cells, and I was right. But the method I thought was wrong. I didn't realize that in the early 1800s, physicians looked under the microscope and literally counted each cell. That was in no way practical and probably was a huge pain. The next method was using a grid in the microscope and just counting through that. That did not seem very easy or enjoyable either. As I kept reading, I wondered: What was even the point of counting and examining the blood cells. I learned that first off it could distinguish between red and white blood cells. As technology advanced, the red blood cell count could be related to types of disease. That was a good advancement in technology and methods, especially since taking blood from a sick or hurt patient became more and more common. This method opened up a wider possibility of other methods that can be used to examine the blood and determine other factors that related to the blood count as technology increased even more.

Technology in the Hospital: Ch. 3-5

I was interested by Ch.5 where it got more in depth about the x-ray image. What stood out to be the most was how important gender was in reading the machine. I did not realize that gender would even be a factor in making machines. I knew that clearly there were different parts and organs in males and females and that physicians needed to know the difference in interpret the image of an x-ray. I also like reading about the privacy part of this chapter. I never thought about that while the health care system was building up that there was not doctor-patient confidentially and that your x-rays and pictures could be every where. When I look at our technology today, I never would've guess how slowly everything came about and improved over time. We are so privileged with so much that I would not be able to imagine a time where there was not treatments or cure or machines that easily distinguished between broken bones and just a slight sprain. Slowly but surely, it seems like hospitals are definitely advancing more than the hospitals of the Civil War, and I'm ready to see what new machines or technique will come about next.

Technology in the Hospital: Ch. 1-2

Just the first 2 pages of the book showed so much. Comparing the two cases of broken legs that were about 25 years apart was so interesting to me. The way that laboratory tests had advanced so that they did not just take X-rays, but they took multiple urine and blood analysis and more detailed testing in the later case, was fascinating because nowadays we go through so many different tests when we are in the hospital that it is weird to think about a time where little to no in-depth testing was done. Another thing I like about this book is that they use example of individual patients. This helps in getting really involved in individual processes and understand how tests can be similar and different in case-to-case studies. It also makes the book more interesting since there are many different interesting cases instead of just a dull recap of a bunch of illnesses, such as the patients from war where doctors diagnosed many cases with one or two different diseases instead of doing super thorough testing.

Ch.7-Afterward

The part that stood out to be the most was the ending when they finally talked about The Germ Theory of diseases. As the book put it, "nothing in medicine was altered more dramatically in the last four decades following the civil war than the understanding of infectious disease". I think this really is the start of medicine. In the book, it showed basic understanding and treatments for diseases that had been around for years, but the cause was not as clear. Now that the cause is found, I assume this is the start of the better antibiotics that are about to arise over the next decades. This ending really sets the mark for where to other books may go, because medicine is a big part of health care and now that the causes of many diseases are know discovered, it makes medicine as advanced as it is today. This theory also helps in trying to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. After reading the book, I will hope I will enjoy the next few books more. This book is set into a far back period in history that really didn't spark my interest because I do not have much interest in wars, but it was a good way to lay out the simple foundation and beginnings of health care systems. I hope the next few books get more modern and more exciting and something that really catches my attention and that will give me a better understanding of health care systems as a whole.