Visually impaired but still managed to graduated cum laude for my master’s degree in healthpsychology and technology!

 It has been a while since I’ve posted. It all had to with the fact that I really needed to focus (even) more on my study and so I did. The people who like reading my blogs already know that I have an eye condition that has brought my sight back to about 5% with no central vision. This particularly affects my reading abilities (amongst others) since I cannot read anything ever without proper (electronic) magnifying tools.   

(celebrating this awesome moment with my sisters)

Normally I try to create a bit more content for you guys but this post is more of an update. One that I am really proud of and I wanted to share it with you.   

To graduate I needed to do my own research and I pulled it off to partner up with an big organization that offers care and expertise to visually impaired people in all fields that you can imagine (school, work, life, diagnostics etc.). Since I know that eHealth is becoming very important in the field of health and healthcare, I wanted to do something with eHealth in my research. Because of the aging population (and age being a major risk factor for visual impairments) I’ve decided to focus on the growing population of visually impaired elderly (and how they relate to eHealth).   

eHealth is the use of information and/or communication technology, especially internet technology, to support or improve health or healthcare. (This is the basic definition but eHealth is more than this, it is a way of thinking, a certain mindset). eHealth can be an app that provides you the opportunity to track your health and possibly send that information to the doctor. eHealth can be as basic as making online appointments with healthcare professionals. eHealth can be an online course to help with a depression of alcohol addiction. eHealth can be web-based, app-based, wearables, domotics, robotics and so on. I think my point is made haha.   

Eventually I focused my research on how visually impaired elderly relate to eHealth services that a rehabilitation center for the visually impaired can offer (In the future). If you find this topic interesting, let me know. Then I will do a separate post about my research soon.   

(I'm checking the information on my diploma with my electronic magnifier).

During the whole process of working on my master these, it has cost me stress, tears, skin problems, back problems, sleeping problems. Because, damn, it is NOT easy doing a (qualitative, interview) study with 5% vision. But last Friday, I graduated, even cum laude!   The last few weeks I was busy but I also felt a lack of inspiration to write about for you guys. After 8 years of studying, I now face a new life phase which is pretty exciting but scary AF…. I don’t know yet (from my own experiences) how the labor industry will welcome me because of my visual impairment. I don’t know if people want me, if they will discriminate me because of my sight, if I get payed less because of my sight.  

 What do you think: Is it the amount of time and energy you put into your work that needs to be payed/valued or the amount of work that is accomplished? For example, a normal sighted person might do 30 work cases in 8 hours and goes home with a bit of hunger. But a visually impaired person might do 25 cases in 8 hours and goes home completely exhausted and with headaches. Do you value the hard work or the finished work? Should the visually impaired person be payed less despite needing to work harder (in comparison with a normal sighted person) or should the visually impaired person be payed equally despite getting less work done?   

I am truly curious what you think? And what would you like to read about in my future posts?   

Merry Christmas!!   

@boosje123