Cassidy Troy

Professor McGovern

Honors Service Learning

26 September 2014

Day of Service

   On Stockton’s Day of Service, on September 6 2014, I had the privilege of working closely with The Eastern Service Workers Association (ESWA). This organization is not government owned, and not considered a charity. The members of the group are unemployed or underemployed people trying to survive. Through this association, when one member is helped, it is asked of that person to help the next member if he can. These members almost form a community to combat poverty. Members who need the necessities that many have taken for granted, such as food, water, clothing, furniture, are offered if the members need them. Also, things such as medical and dental care are provided through doctors that volunteer their time to help the people who cannot afford this care.

The team that I was a part of went into the impoverished section of Atlantic City, a major city that has been affected by the increase in job loss because many of the casinos have been going out of business. We went door-to-door asking people to join and become members of the association. We had to state that there is a small monthly fee of $0.67, completely voluntary and asked of its members, but we also noted that members pay if they can and when they can.

This was an eye-opening experience for me. I realized that obviously there are people struggling, but I was even more surprised at the fact that the people who answered the doors were not skeptical or rude, but rather positive and optimistic for the future that ESWA could help them work towards. We added around fifteen new members to the association, many with families, all willing to work to create a brighter future, an important lesson that everyone should learn. I truly enjoyed this experience because it was an active experience. I actually got to hear people’s stories and what they have been through, and what they want to do for the future, and how they want to get there.

Cassidy Troy

Professor McGovern

Life of the Mind

20 October 2014

Sorel King’s Story

On October 2^nd, I had the privilege of listening to guest speaker, Sorel King. King was excellent, as she discussed the effect of medical errors, specifically one personal to her. In the year 2001, Josie, King’s daughter, was brought to the Johns Hopkins University Hospital to treat the burns she received from a bath that was too hot. Josie was treated fairly quickly, and seemed to be healing well. Josie was transferred to the “step down” room, a room for patients with a lesser need for intensive care. This was a positive step toward recovery, right?

Wrong. Sorel King noticed right away that Josie looked thirsty, dehydrated, tired, and discolored, so she informed the nurse of this. Sorel was given ice chips to feed Josie, and the doctor disagreed with the severity of the concern expressed by Sorel. Soon enough, the doctor removed the central lines from Josie’s body, and the nurse gave Josie Gatorade and Methadone, (a strong prescription medication to treat pain), despite the fact that Sorel did not want to give her child the medication. Josie was extremely dehydrated by that time, and Sorel kept repeating the fact that Josie did not look well. Sorel was too trusting of the nurses, and she listened to them with limited questioning. Shortly after hospitalization, Josie was determined brain-dead. Josie died from dehydration, something that could have easily been prevented.

Sorel King specifically wanted health science majors to attend this event. Not only did she want to tell her story, but she also wanted to help educate her audience of the mistakes that are made so easily in the healthcare field. King stressed the importance of interprofessional communication, and communication between the patient and the family members. King wants to create a new generation of healthcare professionals that are better educated of the significance of interaction, and the negative consequences of poorly executed communication.

Cassidy Troy

Professor McGovern

Life of the Mind

21 November 2014

It is a play that touches upon loss, sorrow, family issues, with a balance of comedy. Last week, I got the privilege of seeing the theatre play titled, Crumble, (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake), directed by Kate Sparacio, a senior Theatre major with Visual Arts and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies minors. Sparacio displayed her understanding for the deeper undertones and meanings during the play itself, and during the “Talk Back” session after Thursday’s show on November 13^th, which I attended. The play had five characters in total, and they all had vital roles that the Stockton students accurately and realistically captured. Nicole Clark played the mother, John Wisienski played multiple roles as the father/Justin Timberlake/Harrison Ford, Madelaine Welch played Janice, the daughter, Phoebe Gruetter played Barbara, the aunt, and Evan Williamson played the role of the Apartment.

The show is mainly focused around the topic of loss and the death of the father and how the mother, Janice, and the Apartment are coping with the given situation. During the course of the play, the audience sees the frustration develop among all of the characters and how they each deal with their own losses separately. The mother is shown to neglect Janice and the Apartment, as she distracts herself from her woes through her occupation as a chef. The audience can feel empathy with this character as she is struggling to balance her job, the care she is supposed to be showing to both Janice and the Apartment, along with her sorrow. The character Janice is eleven years old, and mostly keeps to herself as she copes by hindering her feelings of the loss of her father from everyone except her dolls. She is a troubled child, who does not know how to appropriately react to her loss, (later in the play, Janice uses her resources as she tries to construct a bomb to end both her mother and her sufferings, but winds up losing her right hand in the process). During the play, Janice has more dialogue with her dolls and with the nonliving elements of the play compared to dialogue with any actual living character. Barbara, the aunt tries to give Janice advice, and acts as a mother figure to her mainly because Barbara is infertile and cannot have children. Barbara is dealing with the loss of fertility and copes with this loss by owning 57 cats, along with wanting to be a mother figure to Janice.

Kate Sparacio pinpointed the reason she chose this play when I listened to the “Talk Back” session. Sparacio mentioned that all the male characters were not real. I was fascinated when she discussed how the father is just a formulated memory for the mother and Janice. The father is not actually real in the play; for Janice, her mind creates the memory of her father as Justin Timberlake, and the mother creates the memory of her husband as Harrison Ford. The roles of these two made-up characters, (Timberlake and Ford), act as displays of how the mother and Janice actually viewed the father. The play hints at a possibly sexually abusive relationship between Janice and her father, and also hints that the father was viewed as a hero, like Indiana Jones, for the mother. The Apartment was another character that was not real. He expressed the lack of care for him after the death of the father. He is neglected, and is crumbling every day more and more. The play is very symbolic and expresses many different topics throughout such as the different ways to cope with loss, the different views a person can have of a person who was lost, etc. The play showed the strength of having characters that were inanimate, yet they still expressed emotion through themselves as well as the other characters in the play.

I was so pleased that I found the time to go to the show, Crumble, (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake), because it was completely worth my time. The “Talk Back” was also interesting mainly because by listening, I learned a lot of what the play was about beneath the surface. I learned about all the thought and consideration that went into costume design, especially the fact that the father wore his wedding ring throughout the entire show, a subtlety that I did not notice until it was pointed out by the costume designer, Chelsea Regan, was a very significant touch. The play was extraordinary and the discussion directly after further developed my understanding of all of its elements. I truly enjoyed this production very much.