There’s an Amber alert out in the Kansas City area after two men and a woman apparently strangled an 8-month pregnant woman and cut open her uterus to remove the baby. They’re now looking for the three in a hatchback, carrying the infant.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that humans are capable of such gruesome acts, especially in the background of the holidays.
I feel sick.
UPDATE: They found the baby .
One of my favorite pieces is out again: The NYT’s The Year In Ideas . Interesting on the medical front: an exoskeleton prosthesis that takes the load off your back; eyeball jewelry , which really doesn’t seem that great, and a bit invasive into my freaking EYE; cancer music , where researchers are trying to listen to the vibrations of cells and diagnose neoplasia (how that will differentiate between benign and malignant, the important step, is beyond me); economic theory to encourage vaccine production , and skin literature (I’d have something by Vonnegut tattooed if I had to choose).
Also not to be missed is a short interview with Stephen Hawking . Some of my favorite bits:
What is your I.Q.?
I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.With all your intense erudition, why do you bother writing pop-science books about the universe, the latest of which is the illustrated version of ”On the Shoulders of Giants”?
I want my books sold on airport bookstalls.Are you always this cheerful?
Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.Seriously, how do you keep your spirits up?
My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.
Really puts one’s own challenges and upsets in perspective, huh?
I’m done. DONE, I say! Hallelujah .
49 questions for a final. Doesn’t seem right. But whatever. I feel great, exhausted, wonderful. I should really bottle these endorphins and sell them. There were some questions that were insane .
But who cares. I’m free .
As I sit here early in the morning trying to force myself to go through WebPath one more time, I can’t help but think how damn good I’m going to feel in 4-5 hours. I won’t even need all that heroin I bought last week. I’ll probably just sell it back on EBay.
This test today is basically one-third of the boards, and we’ve had less than a week to prepare for it. Here goes nothin’.
I pray to the gods and the power of Grayskull , please help my neurons to dig up the lost memories of pharmacology from the depths of my mind. Specifically, the antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and anti-cancer drugs, as I’m thinking those are the ones that will be the focus of my exam on Friday. If I could get the toxicities back, as well as mechanisms, and all the mnemonics I made up for them, that’d be great.
Also, if it’s not too much trouble, all of microbiology would be awesome. If not, I’d like the major bacteria and viruses, specifically upper respiratory tract infections, pneumonias, diarrhea bugs, and urinary tract infections.
I’m really willing to make it worth your while, God.
If you’re not reading Mimi Smartypants , your life is either a) not complete or b) totally lame.
Mimi totally picks me up when I really need it. Like today. When I did really crappy on an endocrine exam, and I have a cumulative Final O’ Death in one week’s time.
She also has a book of her writings. Yes, she’s that good. She’s literally the only weblog/journal/whatever I read that doesn’t have an RSS feed. That means a lot, in my sick little dweeb head.
Also, she lives in Chicago, where I used to be, so brownie points for that.
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I got into a nice yelling match with a close friend last night (who will inevitably read this, I’m sure). This is not news. We do this every couple months or so. Very healthy.
Reflecting back, it’s kind of interesting to see why I was mad at him-he had insinuated that I have loads of free time because during one of my study breaks, I had emailed him a website I thought he might enjoy. He found this suspect, because when he called me while I was “in the zone” studying, interupting my train of thought, I didn’t stay on the phone long, and excused myself to get back to work.
And then I realized how totally defined I am by my hard work. Other people are, too, I suppose, but what else do I have to show for it? No paying job, no major source of income besides hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans. I can only impress people by my perserverance and my knowledge. So of course I was insulted; telling a medical student that he or she is not working hard enough is both a) nowhere further from the truth and b) insulting to one’s core definition (What a does a med student do? Study, study, study.)
I’d have (and have had) a similar reaction when the same friend, not coincidentally, denigrates my knowledge (or any other person). They’re usually kidding, sure, but I still take offense. If my knowledge is devalued, what else do I have to pride myself on?
I knew medical school messed people up, but this is really sad that I now define myself this way.
When you study diseases and cancers and other terrible things all day long, you start to formulate the most invalid of hypotheses: this is pathology that affects other people . I will not get cancer. I will not have a risk of dying. I will go on my merry way, helping my patients. I will remain 24.
We need to know these diseases and their symptoms and complications to help our patients, never us. Maybe it’s an “us versus them” mentality, or maybe it’s just a psychological defense mechanism, but either way, I’m constantly reading about some disease and thinking to myself, “Man, that would really be awful to get that. I feel so bad for what they must have to go through.” But then a moment later, the reality hits me-and it’s frightening. I’m assuming that these awful cancers with awful prognoses and awful survival rates and awful treatments will somehow skip me. I’m just as likely to develop some of these cancers or diseases. I don’t get a “by” just because I’m going to be a doctor.
Perhaps that’s why doctors are more likely to smoke, drink in excess, or do recreational drugs than you’d expect. Less likely to get a regular checkup and physical. These aren’t diseases that affect all people. They affect other people.
I love it when doctors who have seen hundreds (thousands?) of a certain class of disease make pre-clinical students feel stupid and inadequate for not understanding every possible physiologic consequence of said disease. Great way to encourage learning and turn people on to the exciting world of your specialty.
I’d hate to see how they react to patients who ask questions, get confused, or don’t understand something.
December first. World AIDS Day. Protect yourself and get tested.
I read And The Band Played On (read the first 3 pages at the new Google Print), and it was absolutely excellent. It changed the way I thought about policy, the media, politicians, politics, and celebrity; it still has a lot of lessons that we can learn from. If you’re looking for a new book to read, pick this one up; it’s a page-turner.
I couldn’t help but wonder if we would have reacted to HIV if we only started to really see it now, as opposed to 20 years ago. Would the government continue to deny it? Would the NIH underfund and ignore it for years, only later trying to take credit for isolation and discovery of the virus? (The French discovered it.) Would the president keep from mentioning it for 6 years, or until 16,000 people had died from it, and thousands more were already infected?
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