Bryan Hallmark

English 110
Dr. Archibald

Blog Assignment #1

Recently I was asked to complete a survey featuring various topics throughout the

healthcare industry. The survey conducted had me choose multiple topics in which I was

interested in. These topics ranged from heart disease and cancer to anger management and drug

addiction. The topics I chose to focus on are problems that either hit close to home or run in my

family’s medical history.

Heart disease is a killer that has me very concerned. Recently a member of my own

family had passed away due to heart disease. In fact, The Center for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) states that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women

in the United States, so chances are you or someone you may know will be affected by it.1 Even

though it is the leading cause of death, I know very little about heart disease besides the obvious

assumption that it is a malfunction of your heart. Since this killer is present in my gene pool I

would like to get to better understand heart disease and the necessary precautions and

preventions associated with it.

Another topic I chose was the silent killer known as cancer. There are many different

types of cancer each as deadly as the next. Cancer can often arise without any warning, so

regular checkups with a doctor are beneficial. I am not too sure as to what drives cancer or the

methods in which it develops: therefore, I would be most interested in learning about the

beginning stages of cancer.

When filling in my survey, I also decided I’d be interested in diabetes. Diabetes is a

growing problem in the United States. According to the National Diabetes Information

Clearinghouse (NDIC) 10.7 percent of Americans age 20 and older have diabetes.2 Further

translating this number means that approximately 23.5 million Americans are diabetic.2 My

knowledge of diabetes is also limited. I know that diabetics often have to monitor their blood
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Bryan Hallmark
English 110
Dr. Archibald

Blog Assignment #1

sugar levels and keep it within a healthy balance. I would like to know many things about

diabetes. For instance, what are the long term affects of diabetes, what are the dangers, and how

effective are measures to prevent them?

With each passing day the growing healthcare issue seems to exponentially worsen with

no immediate fix in sight. That is why we at Health-Care Information Project (HCIP) are trying

to ascertain as much information and knowledge possible to understand why healthcare is in

jeopardy. Healthcare is at the forefront of all current problems because healthiness does not

discriminate against who it will affect: anyone and everyone! Without adequate healthcare we

stand at an even greater risk for one of the fore mentioned disease or disorders.

1. http://www.cdc.gov/heartDisease/statistics.htm

2. http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/DM/PUBS/statistics/#estimation

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