Essay Sample on Historical Figures as Agents of Change

Introduction

Change and health care are closely interlocked. Health care organizations are progressively encountered with the desire to adopt change, whether it is advancement in medical care, technology, increasing demand for care delivery, a patient population that is gradually active and involved in their health and wellbeing or changing reimbursement and cost models. By acknowledging that change is unavoidable in the healthcare field, organizations have been concentrating on attaining effective change management, entailing change agents' utilization to ease the shift and wok to facilitate positive change. In the past decades in healthcare, there been unique individual the facilitates change that humanity up to date benefit from their actions. Some of these historical figures are Chadwicks and Edward Jenner. Chadwick was the central actor in the sanitary movement in the turbulent 1840s, and Edward Jenner discovered that vaccines effective against smallpox. This essay aims to examine each of these historic agent change's contribution and analyze the challenges they encountered.

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Comparison of Innovative, Health-related Activities by Chadwick and Edward Jenner

Sram, and Ashton (1998), Point out that in the 1840s, Chadwick was the key player in the sanitary movement. His Report published in 1842 on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain emphasizes that immorality is the crucial cause of desolation and pauperism and not poverty and capitalism as society viewed. His Report was used as a guideline of the past of the 1848 Public healthcare Act.

While on the other side, Jenner became a hero for developing the smallpox vaccine that stopped the pandemic and saved many individuals' lives. Before this vaccine was developed, many people had died from the plague. Thus, Edward's move was a significant advancement in healthcare. An earlier doctor used to inject people will determine a small quantity of smallpox disease to build a patient's resistance to the disease (Chung, & Liu, 2017). Jenner vaccination was effective and safer to curb the spreads of smallpox

Challenges the Historical Agent of Change Faced

Chadwick's Report faced Criticism

The first final Report that Chadwick produced was essential to the old Poor Law system, and it suggested vital changes. However, despite his Report giving a recommendation, the new Poor Law Amendment policy did not take the path that Chadwick assumed. Nonetheless, it established a Central Poor Law Commission, which he felt would reinforce the new changes. Chadwick's Report faced essential criticism that t of Poor Law was left to be structured as the local level, and it had no dominant supremacy over the entire system. Chadwick had anticipated being charged as one of the three persons on the Poor Law Commission during the 1834 law amendment process, but he was only appointed secretary (Hamlin, 1998). Having been given lesser influence in the Poor-law's revision did not stop him from pushing the Law to assume his way since Chadwick utilized his position as secretary to recommend further how to better the Law.

Financial Constrains

According to Hamlin (1998), one challenge he faced was the Report on typhoid epidemics that hit significant cities in England in 1837 and 1838. The Report claimed that there was a pressing need to enhance the living conditions of the poor and that the lack of public health was linked to the lifestyles lived by the marginalized. The Report, further suggest that the improved health of the marginalized people would benefit the country directly as a whole (Hamlin, 1998). . These changes recommended by the Report was costly and made Chadwick collided with several influential individuals who did not want to contribute money to assist the marginalized. Besides, the Conservative government of 1848 dismissed the Report. Chadwick was patient and kept on holding on the Report until when the Liberal government comes into power; hence, the Public Health Act was implemented in 1848.

Challenge of Lack of Advanced Equipment by Jenner

Unlike Chadwick, Edward Jenner did not face any opposition and critics. The only problem he faced was the inability to produce evidence that would back up his experiments to show his vaccine was effective against smallpox. Another challenge he faced is a lack of advanced equipment to work with. By then, technology had not advanced in the field of health, and most of the things were done manually

Importance of the Activities for Positive Social Change

Chadwick's Report was economic. It argued that if the health of the marginalized people was enhanced, It would reduce the number of people seeking low relief; much poor relief was offered to the household of men who died from infectious diseases (Eyler, 1976). Therefore, cash spent on enhancing public health was cost-effective as it would be cheap in the long run.

His effort led to the most significant steps to enhance the public's health through the provision of clean drinking water, improved drainage, and removal of waste materials from streets.

Whereas, the vaccine he developed formed the basis of modern immunology and motivated other scientists to create different vaccines to protect people from other pandemic diseases

How Jenner Achievements relates to my Personality

To obtain the vaccine against the disease, Jenner worked tiredly and dedicated most of her time to his experiments. According to Mellanby (1949), he desired to transform the world for the better of others. Therefore, Jenner was a selfless person. Like him, one of my personality is that I hope to see good on others. I can do all it takes as long has it has a positive impact on other individuals' life.

Incorporating Public Health Values and Philosophies as Scholar-Practitioner

Public health is a practical and applied field. Mellers and Tetlock, 2019 asserted that public health work is solution-centered. The field values evidence-based decision making to support their action. As a scholar-practitioner, I will produce high-quality journal articles that can be used by public health policy creates to enable them to make a decision based on reliable and trustworthy information.

References

Chung, K. T., & Liu, J. K. (2017). Pioneers in Microbiology: The Human Side of Science. World Scientific. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GxM0DwAAQBAJ&oi

Eyler, J. M. (1976). Mortality statistics and Victorian health policy: program and criticism. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 50(3), 335-35. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44451278

Hamlin, C. (1998). Public health and social justice in the age of Chadwick: Britain, 1800-1854. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fwCPy5V3cOc

Mellanby, E. (1949). Jenner and his impact on medical science. British medical journal, 1(4612), 921. https://www.bmj.com/content/1/4612/921

Mellers, B.A., and Tetlock, P.E., 2019. From discipline-centered rivalries to solution-centered science: Producing better probability estimates for policymakers. American Psychologist, 74(3), p.290. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000429

Sram, I., & Ashton, J. (1998). Millennium report to Sir Edwin Chadwick. BMJ, 317(7158), 592-596. ttps://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.317.7158.592