PSYCHOLOGY (Essay Sample)

Reflection Students Name University Affiliation Course Name and Number Professors Name Due Date Reflection One of my earliest leadership roles involved attending to the medical needs of my fellow kindergarteners in the event of an accident or injury, such as a nosebleed. Even if I couldn't help them as a physician, I ensured they were cared for and given the first aid they needed and moral support in such scenarios. Although I was excited to move on to the next grade level, my enthusiasm for helping others and becoming a health nut did not fade as I entered the elementary school setting. Around this time, I started looking into puberty and the state of my reproductive system. I felt confident and assured that my interest in the medical field was evident after I did this and taught it to other young girls going through puberty. After a combined twelve trying years, my elementary and secondary education has concluded. Between the ages of 13 and 19, I face many significant challenges, especially as an adolescent. During this time, I've come to realize that I'm facing a wide range of internal and external difficulties, most of which affect my choices. That's also when I went through many of life's "firsts," like puberty, hormonal shifts, family responsibilities, school pressures, and illness for the first time. All of these experiences happened right now in my life. Also, I have many problems that crop up around this time of year. Growing up poor in a less populated part of the country has not deterred me from pursuing a career in the medical field. It has always been one of my main priorities to assist others. Even at the tender age of twelve, I dreamed of contributing significantly to the healthcare system as a frontline worker. In recent years, for instance, Kenya has been struck by an HIV epidemic (Jaffar et al., 2004). Thousands of people have perished since the first case of the fatal virus was discovered in Kenya in 1984, and the threat posed by the worldwide epidemic is far from over (Akwara et al., 2003). I learned about the disease from multiple sources: being a child during the time of the virus's discovery, reading about it regularly in the news, and seeing the number of deaths attributed to the virus broadcast at global HIV awareness events. My desire to research the healthcare sector was sparked by the worldwide focus on HIV/AIDS on World AIDS Day and movements fronted by youths in the country (Kimani & Obanyi, 2000). Mental illness in Kenya is often met with multiple layers of discrimination from the general public. Stigmatization exists in society because of generalizations about people with mental illness and because many equate mental illness with malevolence. Furthermore, those with mental health issues may internalize the negative perceptions of others, which in turn can affect their self-perception and quality of life due to loneliness and isolation. There is a barrier to effective care for Kenyans due to social stigma. Those with mental illness in Kenya would benefit significantly from increased public awareness of these conditions and better access to treatment options that I plan to champion. I firmly believe that better education about mental health can break down stigma and open the door to treatment for those living with mental illness in Kenya. As such, HIV.AIDS is a significant cause of such stigmatization that I have witnessed people living with the virus being accorded. McHenry et al. (2016) found that among people living with HIV, HIV/AIDS-related stigma (H/A stigma) affects every facet of care, from initial testing and enrolment to medication, no adherence, and increased risk of HIV transmission due to unsafe sexual practices and a failure to disclose status. Individuals living with HIV are already at a higher risk for developing mental health issues due to stigma-related stressors like social exclusion, discrimination, and even physical violence. H/A stigma has been linked to lower quality of life, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness in several adult studies. Therefore, I wish to offer such patients moral support and make them understand that living with the virus is not a death warrant. I wanted to be at the forefront of the effort to help my fellow Kenyans learn more about the disease and the preventative measures that can be taken. In high school, I focused a lot of my energy on gaining knowledge in the medical and scientific fields. My lifelong ambition to earn a degree in a health-related field and become a competent mental professional was realized when I joined Daystar University. In 2020, a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 had already shown that it could spread rapidly across borders and cause catastrophic outbreaks in confined settings. This virus was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and was given the name SARS to honor the city's role in the outbreak of the deadly SARS virus in 2003. The result was a dramatic increase in reported cases across Africa; by April 1, 2020, there were 6,555 confirmed cases, including 244 deaths and 456 recoveries. On February 15, 2020, Egypt announced that they had found the first case of the disease. As of April 2, 2020, most African countries had reported confirmed cases of the Covid-19 virus. On February 19, 2020, the Kenyan government, through the Ministry of Health, implemented several preventative measures to ensure the public's health was secure. Not only did many different organizations work together to counter the threat of COVID-19, but that was also one of the safeguards in place. As a result of presidential decree No. 2 of the year 2020, the National Emergency Response Committee was established on February 28 of that year. They decided and instructed the people of Kenya to take the following extra measures at the conference held on March 20, 2020: The President of the United States announced the implementation of a stimulus package to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus on the economy on March 25, 2020 (Aluga, 2020), which included a decrease in the income tax from 30% to 25%, a reduction in the value-added tax from 16% to 14%, and a cash payment of 10 billion shillings to be given to the elderly, the disabled, and children without parents. The government of Kenya announced on March 27, 2019, that all citizens and visitors to the country outside of those providing essential services would be subject to a curfew from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am (Aliaga, 2020). This curfew at midnight would last for an unspecified amount of time. This intrigued my role in being an astute healthcare provider. As a young Kenyan who experienced the Kenyan economy going down, lives getting lost, and citizens losing their jobs to the lockdown imposed, healthcare provision in the mental health domain is a noble profession for which I have a calling. Thousands of my countrymen and women sunk into depression due to losses of incomes, students lost hope in their education, many young girls dropped out of school, and several young men slipped into drugs and substance abuse. As such, the number of mental health issues increased, prompting the need for a clinical psychologist. It has therefore been my noble dream to help my country achieve a mental health state, lower the depression and suicide rates and ensure that peace and sanit...