Fundamentally Insane: test week #3

shout out to Tripp Mostertz

This week is test week #3 - cardiopulmonary block.  The first two blocks were lots of biochemistry and anatomy that we had to learn to lay the foundation.  This is the first block that it felt more clinical.  Now we're learning about the heart and the lungs, and how the body really works.  Which is good.. except for everyone's burned out and ready for break.  

Sidenote to fellow students - we are a mere 50 hours away from winter vacation, a glorious two weeks away from the syllabus.

Everyone's been complaining about how we're all sick of school, talking dreamily about all the plans (or lack of plans) we have for the next two weeks, and how we can't wait to talk about things other than pulmonary vein pressure gradients.  

And just like we asked for - enter the real world.  In case you haven't been on facebook in the past two days - there was a shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut where a 20 year old man murdered 20 children, a high school principal, the school psychologist, and his own mother. There were immediate calls left and right about gun control.  

But what I want to know is - what's the fundamental problem underlying gun-related murders?  

comics speak louder than words

Sidenote - In Portland, OR, methamphetamine used to run rampant, so the state government made a push to cut out the meth problem.  At the same time, the heroin trend rapidly increased and took over as the drug of choice in Portland.  Was the meth ban a success?  If you look at the meth numbers the state government was definitely successful, but if you think about the underlying problem.. maybe cracking down on meth didn't get it done.

So, what if the best way to prevent murders wasn't to eliminate guns?  

In the modern eat-or-be-eaten world I'm not that surprised that people turn to murdering innocent people.  That seems like the next logical step in a dominance-obsessed culture.  Take sports - the closest thing to a modern day religion - some sports have basically devolved to exerting physical superiority over each other.  

let us come together and worship

Take med school - a subculture obsessed with academic dominance.  We all worship at the church of AOA, eating up any advice from the prophets that score 270 on boards and match in plastics or CT surgery.  Think about it - it's well established that no doctor remembers half the fun facts they learned during M1/M2.  I believe there's a point to learning some of it, but some is probably about 70%.  Is there a point to killing ourselves to get to that 90 - 95% level?  The only point I can think of: to establish ourselves as the 1%ers of med school and assert our academic dominance.  

In a world that's all about dominance - should we be surprised that people turn to murdering the innocent?

See you on the other side,

from ken

test week #1: foundations
test week #2: anatomy

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