English presentations:

1. Red Cross:
First response during a myocardial infarction (MIA)

The Red Cross… (explanation) 24 jun 1859 Battle of Solferino.

The main actions to take when treating a patient who’s in a medical urgency, used often to keep him alive
are called life support treatments. We have two types of patients when attending a medical urgency as an
Emergency Medical Technician: the trauma ones, whose life treatenings situations are often caused by
accidents, and on the other hand, the clinical cases, where we need to treat some diseases caused by a pre-
existent condition as well as by an acute conditions (such as a myocardial infarction).

As this is just an introduction, we are not going to talk about the trauma patients. The purpose of this
presentation is to talk about clinical patients with the acute disease of a myocardial infarction (MIA) and what
we have to do if a person has one.

So what is a myocardial infarction? When we say “infarction” we are referring to a latin term, which means,
according to the Britannica, “dead of tissue resulting from a failure of body blood supply”; also, “myocardial”
refers to the main muscle who provides blood to the body, commonly known as the heart. So, when we say
“myocardial infarction” we are talking about the dead of heart tissues. But why does this occur? According to
the American Heart Association, the AHA, there are many causes, but the first one, and the most common,
is what they call as “ischemic MIA”. An ischemic MIA occurs when one or more arteries in the heart get
blocked. This happens often when a blood clot is formed in the artery. But that doesn’t happen just because
the body wants. There are many other causes. Let’s explain the full process with a practical example:

When a person gains weight because he or she is eating too much fatty food, his arteries are also gaining
LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides, which are, in simple words, fat in the blood. So, at this point, having fat in
the blood may sound awful, but not dangerous. The danger starts when that fat becomes part of the artery
wall, because it gets in it, forming something named fat plate. Of course the body, by this point, is giving
some warnings, such as the blood pressure: The normal blood pressure values for a healthy person are
under 120 the SYS one and 80 the DIA one, being the optimum value: 110/70. So, by this point, maybe the
patient with high fat levels in his blood has BP values over 140/90, but because BP does not give any
symptoms in most cases, probably the person is unaware of the ongoing disease.

Well, then: The person has the arteries filled with fat. So, when that happens BP gets high and the fatty plate
is growing with every meal he has. We are now calling this disease, –the one with the High BP and the fatty
plate-arteries–, atherosclerosis. One of the qualities of the atherosclerosis is that is incurable. So, if the
person does not change their lifestyle habits and starts medication to lower the BP and the LDL-cholesterol
and trygl (traigliceraids) levels, it’s just a matter of time for a heart arrest (MIA) or some other, as bad as the
MIA, disease to happen.

But one day the MIA happens. The patient starts to feel oppressive chest pain that irradiates to the left
shoulder along with jaw pain and he falls down. His body, now, is trying to survive an ischemic MIA. So, the
actions we need to take in order to save him are the ones called: “survival chain”, –but first, even when he
doesn’t get unconscious, we have to give him an aspirin, if we know the patient is not allergic– which are:
 1. Evaluate the safety of the scene, because we do not have to put ourselves in danger to save others,
never! The reason for this is simple: if something happens to us, now they’ll be two patients to attend
instead of one, and our life comes first.
2. Once we know the scene is safe, we have to put on our protection equipment (if we don’t have it,
then it’ll be our responsibility to attend the patient, because the rule says: “a patient is in fact infectious
as far as we don’t prove the opposite”).
3. Then, we need to approach the patient and evaluate his conscience level: first by talking to him: “Sir,
are you alright? Are you ok?” If he doesn’t answer, then we start applying a painful stimulus in the
center of the thorax by pressing a little bit. Once again, if he doesn’t answer, then:
4. Call the emergency services at 911 or ask somebody else to do it. Make sure the caller stays in the
scene until the ambulance arrives. Also, we are going to ask the person for an AED (Automatic
External Defibrillator).
5. If we know how and we’re qualified to do it, we’re going to try to find carotid pulse for 10 seconds. If
we don’t feel it, or don’t know how to perform this, then:
6. Start chest compressions in an interval of 30x2x5 (RCP) until the ambulance arrives or the patient
recovers ABC.

So, the object of this presentation was to introduce you to the first actions in order to save someone else’s
life. If you feel you can offer your time, mind and body to do it, then you should study to be an EMT.

2. Presentation about the book

Chapter 1. A Sociological point of view

I’d like to start bringing up some of Karl Marx’s theories. As you know, his sociological building is called
Marxism, or historical materialism.

Bring up the coca-cola, TV and other ways to explain.

I’m, because of that, using the concept of “reification”. As George Ritzer said it in “Sociological Theory of the
Midcentury”, reification responds to be a way in which capitalism validates itself for operating in societies.
So, when we hear some of the Coca-Cola, TV poisoning things and other stuff, we could certainly say it is a
reification process. Let’s explain:

The ideas of Mr. Alie Fox are not simple. As we see it, there are inspired in Marx’s point of view. When you
raise your kids in a consumer-capitalist society, then they are going to reificate those actions, and the
capitalism is going over and over. Explain this.

So I believe Mr. Alie Fox ideas are some kind of clue for us to follow another way to step out of capitalism.
And, because of that, I found them revolucionary.

Explain capitalism and socialism.