A life without knowing about our vital signs

Have you thought about the importance of knowing your vital signs? Well let me tell you that I was thinking about it because in this moment I am studying obstetrics and thanks to this I realized that it is a really important thing in the life of everyone. But the knowledge of these would be nothing if there were no specific objects to measure each of the vital signs (temperature, blood pressure). Vital signs are essential to know how our body is functioning, if any value of these is abnormal, it means that something is wrong in our organism.

If I start talking about technology related with vital signs, obviously I have to talk about the temperature: measuring body temperature determines whether a person has a fever. It may also be useful in monitoring to see if a person is ill or if a treatment is working, especially the treatment of infections with antibiotics, for measure this, we use a thermometer, and there are different kinds of these: glass thermometer filled with mercury, electronic thermometer, and plastic strip thermometers that change color to indicate temperature. According to the place where you measure temperature (mouth, armpit or rectum), will be form of it.

Other important vital sign is the blood pressure; it is a measure of the force applied on the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps blood through the body. To measure this we use a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff. There are aneroid manometers and others that use mercury (it has a column of mercury to measure pressure). Nowadays exist automatic tensiometers that now are more used in hospitals and in houses by persons that want or need to know the values to control some pressure problem. I think that although the automatic is the most modern equipment, the traditional method with the mercury manometer is the safest form to measure and to give values, because technology sometimes misleads.

Well, once knowing what these vital signs are and what mean their normal or abnormal values, we can realize the importance of the existence of objects that allow us to measure them. Once the technology becomes more essential to people especially for those responsible for the health of them. However it is very important to know how to use these objects because although them not possess complex mechanisms, who use them must possess precision, good hearing (in the case of having to take the pressure) and good eye (to check the temperature of the thermometer).

Challenges in my discipline.

Hello, I was thinking about the career I am studying (as you know, I am studying obstetrics to be a midwife) and I realized that in the future I will have to face some challenges in the different tasks I will have to do so as to take care and concern for the health of women.

But now there also exist challenges in this discipline. One of these are related to social matters, I mean, they affect the way we are appreciated by the people because a midwife has a very important role to play in the community. However, there are people who have no idea what our career is like and they say what is that? Is it like a nurse? So sometimes it is a little embarrassing to mention the career I am studying because I have to say all the things like what it is, what things the midwives do, the different functions, etc. and then I think about this and I believe that to resolve this in the hospitals and health centers the hospital authorities should promote the role of the midwife and highlight its importance and the differences between midwives and nurses. Another challenge is about education because depending on the university in which you study, you will have a prestige, I do not have problems or challenges to face in this area, because the University of Chile is a collaborating center of the World Health Organization (specifically my career), so I know that I will have facilities and recognition, but there are people that study in the other universities (specially the private ones) that do not have much prestige because maybe there are not highly qualified teachers, or they do not have all the resources and opportunities we have (for example). This is a critical challenge because the country needs good professionals, so is difficult to say how to resolve it because is a problem up to university authorities and the minister of health with the minister of education have to take care about that and look for a solution for this challenge because the future of the students of this career and the health of the future patients are in game.

Improving my faculty

Hello, today I am going to talk about my second home, my faculty: the medical faculty of the University of Chile. I like this place but there are some things that I would like to change. In general it is a nice place, without very flashy colors (that is good), with a front part which is not very modern; that brings it a traditional style.
I said I would like to change some things, for example:
-The library: it is an orderly and pleasant place, BUT it has no toilets, so it is very uncomfortable for the students to have to go to another place (the toilets are far from there) and leave the study, that desconcentrates anybody. So I would build a toilet inside the library (on the second level for example), that would help students to better use the time they have to do their job.
-The CES (health student center): this is a place to recreate and organize faculty topics, BUT the office is literally a mess, so you can not find anything if you do not spend time there, also there are toilets but they are very dirty. I would reorganize the place and I would paint it again to give it life, and the most important thing, clean the toilets, this changes would help us to give it a better use and to enjoy staying there.
Another changes more generals are in the auditoriums improve the illumination and the microphone’s audio to help us to see and hear better the classes.
I do not know what else I would improve, because I am happy with the whole faculty… until I have a problem with something.
Bye.