Project Title: The Real Faces Behind The Health Care “Happy Face” Scales
Project Description: The American health system does not prioritize preventive care. Because of this, people tend to only get seen for medical reasons when they are facing a health concern that needs immediate attention. One of the main reasons someone may decide to seek medical attention is worsening pain. However, not all pain is treated equally, considering the varying backgrounds and pain baselines (tolerance) of both patients and medical professionals. What are the problems created by using a universal pain scale (the happy-face, “rate your pain on a scale from 1-10” scale, also known as the Wong-Baker scale)? Specifically, is this scale, originally intended for children, outdated? Do these problems impact patients from all socioeconomic (defined as income, education, and occupation) backgrounds equally? How important is the role of culture? Is it possible to create an individualized approach to pain care that does not become commercialized in the same manner as opioids as an antidote to pain as the 5th vital sign? Is there a way to estimate how much a patient will have to advocate for themselves? Do certain health policies protect, harm, or help certain groups of people? Researching this question will involve (1) interviewing and connecting with medical professionals and medical anthropologists, inquiring about pain care and pain scales, (2) conducting research about all kinds of pain scales used, (3) gather a group of 10 people with chronic health conditions in Tompkins County, all from varying socioeconomic, cultural, and insurance backgrounds, meeting with all of them individually bi-weekly for the majority of the 2024-25 academic school year, supplying them with varying kinds of pain scales, collecting feedback about which scales are most effective over time, and (4) analyze trends in which kinds of pain scales were helpful/not helpful in addition to the socioeconomic, cultural, and insurance backgrounds of patients. If the current commonly-used pain-scale is too general/outdated, then patients are not getting the adequate care that they need. If pain presents itself in many individualized ways, then there should be more than one way for a patient to effectively communicate their pain with their medical provider, especially in the context of chronic conditions. My thesis has two desired supplemental outcomes: using journalism to turn my thesis into something understandable for people outside of academia and using my research findings to impact current health policy.
Most Important Accomplishment: To date, I don’t know. I find it hard to rank my accomplishments in terms of importance. Possibly raising my cat, Mirabel. She is my baby.
Reflections on the College Scholar Program: I love College Scholar! I have the opportunity to be around people like me who are bursting with passion to change the status quo, not to mention having access to endless resources and excellent advisors.