Everyday I'm shufflin #3 - pre-exam day running diary

#3

A running diary of the day before exam day, the craziest day of study week. Enjoy,

5:20 AM: Wake up. 

5:21 AM: 5 pushups. Need to train for library muscle club. Also I made up a theory that if you exercise in the morning you can adapt your circadian clock. I really want to be a morning person. 

6:03 AM: Arrive wellness center. I've always wondered.. couldn't they just call it the gym? Also, can they build more basketball courts?

6:55 AM: Arrive library. Open internet.

7:25 AM: Start studying.

7:50 AM: First friend comes over to chat about Henderson Hasselbalch equation. Day of social studying officially begins. 

8:07 AM: Just finished my tea. I think I'm a little dehydrated from Taco Tuesday last night with Katie. $3 tacos and Coronas, come on. What should I do to retain more water.. !  Consume salt to upregulate ADH. Start eating chips. 

8:49 AM: Receive second question about Henderson Hasselbalch. 

11:35 AM: Calling every possible phone number at the med school I used to work at to try and figure out how to get them to mail me my W2. I hate talking to administrators. I hate taxes. No wonder so many rich famous people get arrested for taxes. 

12:04 PM: Back to studying neural signaling of hunger. Freaking out a little bit. So many acronyms. What the fuck is ARC. I hate neuro. 

12:33 PM: Back to procrastinating. Just read this interview question with Dirk Nowitzki:

1:37 PM: Play Calvin Harris - 18 Months for the fourth or fifth time in the past two days.

1:42 PM: Pissed off at world. 

2:43 PM: Group ME studying. Everyone dying. Send help.


3:15 PM: Three people sleeping on couches behind us. Everyone zonked. 

3:24 PM: The last time we had an exam was before Christmas, almost two months ago. There's a TON of material on this exam. So much stuff I haven't covered. I could focus on the anatomy, the renal, the biochemistry.. this is going to be a hard test. 

3:42 PM: There's a soccer game on in the corner. These commercials are more interesting than nucleotide metabolism. 

Tripp: Dude, getting to dUMP is difficult. Dump is definitely going on the test.

3:56 PM: Debating giving up for the night. Should we just give up? 

Daniel goes home to take nap. Two students behind us still napping. 

4:23 PM: Going over caffeine lecture. Need more coffee.

4:38 PM: Should we be studying in a room? We're being kind of loud, gathering six chairs and sitting around to talk shit. 

5:06 PM: Going over defense mechanisms. Why are we tested over these poorly defined terms? What's the difference between denial/suppression/repression. 

Paras throws crumpled paper at trash can, misses. 

Keith: You suck at basketball. 

Sudeep: It's ok Paras, Keith is just projecting at you. 

5:30 PM: Percussing ourselves. Sudeep has reticuloendothelial disease. 

5:38 PM: Did you know - if you have white poop you might have pancreatic cancer.

5:38 PM: 13 med students surrounding each other and freaking out. Do intercalated ducts modify secretions? The syllabus says BOTH things! Serious crisis occurring. Everybody yelling at me to stop blogging about it. Richard egging on chaos. 

5:50 PM: Mass migration from library, everyone burned out on library chaos.

5:51 PM: Library push up set. 

5:56 PM: Girl glares at us. Getting too loud. 

6:10 PM: Jonathan busts out break dancing move. Wish I was that cool.

6:30 PM: Depart for home. Drink beer. Study FPC, histo. Pray.

Hope you survive. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

half-baked idea - mandatory year off between undergrad/med school

Back in 2005, the NBA agreed to scale back the influx of high school players by setting a mandatory age limit at 19 and requiring that players be one year removed from high school to enter the NBA. Players don't have to attend college if they don't want to, some players go for the D league, others like Brandon Jennings go ball for a year in Europe. 

This rule makes total sense. What 18 year old is prepared for a biweekly paycheck in the tens of thousands? 

Stan Van Gundy rocking a Dwight Howard Loyalty shirt, priceless

You can't tell me that Andrew Bynum wouldn't have benefited from a year or two in college. Not everyone is LeBron James and physically/mentally prepared for life as a professional basketball player. I know I wasn't anything close to a functioning adult at age 17. 

So here's my half-baked idea: Let's put two requirements on med school education - applicants must be age 22 or over, and have a bachelor's degree before submitting the AMCAS. This would force undergrads to take at least a year off before beginning med school. 

I have a hypothesis - students who came straight through college have a higher average MCAT, higher undergrad GPA, and better CV's than students who took time off after college. They're better med school applicants, and I would assume if you compared grades you'd find that they are better med student. Except, here's the problem: they've never had time to think about their life and evaluate what they want from it. They've spent their whole life running down the track of academia - getting good SAT scores in high school, entering college knowing they were smart enough to declare pre-med as their major of choice, knocking out biology and chemistry classes, and before they knew it they had an MCAT score that was good enough for med school. But do they know what med school entails? Aren't there handfuls of students that ended up in medicine that don't want to be there?

The short answer is yes. At least half the times I've told doctors about how I want to be a doctor - they ask me to reconsider. It's not what you think. It's not like what House or Grey's Anatomy. It's a lot of paper work. My patients are all old and hate me. You don't know what you're getting into. 

Why are docs giving me this advice? Well, one possibility is that they wish someone had told them that twenty years ago, when they were at the crossroads I'm at. Maybe they've just been at gogogo speed on the academia-biology-premed-medschool track for years without half a second to re-evaluate their values in life. 

hey guys, I know I've only been here for
a few months but, just give me the damn ball

NBA sidenote - let's take the Rookie of the Year conversation - the leading candidate is Damian Lillard. DL is the starting point guard for a surprise .500+ team. He leads rookies in points, assists, and minutes. He went to four years of college, and carries himself with swag. He's the only rookie to hit a game winning shot all year. 

Lillard talks a lot about his time in college in this great interview. He faced his first serious injury - a broken foot - nine games into his junior year. It forced him to take some time to re-evaluate his game. He religiously studied film of elite guards like CP3 and Westbrook. He came back from his injury stronger than ever. He had a career year that launched him into a lottery pick. His coaches kept pushing him to be better and better, and Lillard thrived under the attention as the leader of his team. 

What 18 year old basketball star ever regrets going to college? You're the big man on campus, go to tons of parties, dominate every basketball game, and have a ton of time to develop your skills while hanging out with a bunch of other guys that love playing basketball? 

Now, here's 3 reasons why this would be great for med students.

1) Maybe this would give them a chance to slow down, if only for a year, and figure out if this is really what they want. I've had friends that went down a Teach for America path and decide that all they wanted from life was to reach young people through teaching, and it wasn't worth it to them to spend hundreds of thousand of dollars in loan money, not to mention the better part of a decade in training. I've also had friends that spent some time on a Teach for America path, and realize what they really wanted to do was medicine. They came back more passionate than ever, prepared for whatever medical education put in their way.

2) How many people do you meet in med school that are boring? All they do is numbly go through the day-to-day - study, work out, get blitzed on the weekends. One of my theories is that the world would be a better place with more passionate, interesting people. The year off would be HUGE for that. Future doctors could spend it discovering passions that correspond with a career in medicine. Or maybe they could just add a hobby like fishing that could keep them sane. Or they could get married. 

3) It's common knowledge that physician burnout is a huge problem. Think a year of rest would help? Yes. The answer is definitely yes. 

I dare you to tell me why we shouldn't do this. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Relationships in med school pt 8: I got 99 problems - bachelor pad weekend running diary

best friend goes to DC for the weekend

My goal when I came up with this idea was to write a "Relationships in med school" post about being a bachelor for a weekend, but it morphed into a "Everyday I'm Shufflin" post because all I did was study. Anyways, enjoy. 

Begin running diary:

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2/7/13 THU

9:30 AM: Drop Katie off at Charleston Amtrak, pretty sure there were like six passengers. How is Amtrak still in business?

9:54 AM: Arrive back at home. ..What should I do?

step 1 - walk around shirtless

10:00 AM: Eating ramen. Breakfast of champions.

10:13 AM: Still hungry. Combine all ingredients in fridge to make giant mess including pasta. Set with leftovers for the weekend.

11:00 AM: Drinking green tea. Listening to Soltis at 2.5x speed. So efficient. Loving life.

11:55 AM: Waiting for electrician so I can go get coffee, almost reaching afternoon coffee time. Has to be between 12:00 and 2:45, any later and chaos will insue. I've considered carrying around caffeine pills to self-medicate. I should never smoke cigarettes.. I would be a 2 packs a day level smoker within a week.

12:35 PM: Starting to hit wall, still waiting for electrician. 

12:37 PM: Need caffeine. Hating life.

12:38 PM: Start looking for apartments. Our lease is up in August, so I should probably start looking. Living downtown would be so convenient...

1:10 PM: Electrician arrives. I hate taking care of stuff like this. I wish Katie was here. 

1:17 PM: Pretty sure that guy was trained in OLDCARTS. This succession of questions just happened: 

So what's the problem today? 

...right?

And how long has this been happening? 

Have you noticed it being associated with anything else? 

Anything else I can do for you today?

I feel a half-baked idea coming..

2:05 PM: Off to Muddy Waters to grab coffee and get a change of scenery. It's nice to have a car. So much freedom. 

3:21 PM: This text exchange just happened:

Katie - Been hit on three times in the last five minutes. ;)

Ken - 5 girls liked my most recent blog post.

What I should have said: Just hit on three girls in the last five minutes. 

I wish I was this funny in real time.

5:00 PM: Arrive at library, waste time saying hi to everyone in my immediate radius. 

Ken: Hey what's up?

Friend: Not much just been here studying, you?

Ken: Same, just studied at home.

Repeat conversation five times.

8:15 PM: Watch NBA, Celts crush now defunct Lakers. Steve Nash thinking, "I bet I could make it work with Tyson Chandler and Melo.."

8:23 PM: Katie arrives in DC, still alive. Good to know.

8:24 PM: Attention back to basketball.

11:00 PM: sleep

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2/8/13 FRI

5:35 AM: Alarm beeping. Wake up confused. Where's wife best friend? What are these stuffed animals doing here?

5:37 AM: I need to get up.

5:39 AM: Now I really need to get up.

6:05 AM: Depart MUSC. Too early..

10:26 AM: Watching recorded lectures. Unnamed professor suggests illegally obtaining marijuana. Strong work.

6:45 PM: MUSC MSTP recruiting dinner

7:20 PM: After beer and wine, the conversation is getting serious. Just asked these 3 questions - 

What's the purpose of religion?

Do you think a devout Muslim, a faithful Christian, and a staunch Atheists are different or similar?

What's your religious background?

Welcome to MUSC, where shit gets real.

8:37 PM: Dinner ends, to Folly! sidenote - This needs to evolve into a half-baked idea but I've always thought the water is the biggest draw of Charleston. (not the drinking water) MUSC is bringing in recruits from places like Michigan and New York in the middle of January when it's absolutely miserable. Why take them on a tour of downtown, when you could take them to the beach? I feel like the acceptance rate would sky rocket. Who says no to spending the bulk of their 20's living fifteen minutes from the beach?

9:15 PM: Night walk at Folly. Ken loving it way more than applicants.

10:30 pm: Arrive home. Had a fun night, want to tell wife friend about it but she's not here. :( Instead, read twitter.

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2/9/13 SAT

6:15 AM: Alarm goes off, should get to library.

6:15 AM: Alarm promptly turned off, back to sleep.

8:45 AM: Roll out of bed. Loving waking up whenever I want.

10:30 AM: Arrive libs.

the coffee break
bringing med students together everywhere

3:07 PM: Making coffee with three friends. 

3:09 PM: Coffee made, guess we should probably go back and study now.

3:30 PM: After 20 minutes of complaining, we finally go back to study. I love the luxury of procrastinating. I feel time crunched a lot of the time because I have to be productive in the studying time I have. I imagine this would be one of the highlights of being single in med school, you have all the time in the world to talk shit with classmates. 

8:07 PM: Therapy session with male friend having women issues. Glad I'm married. If you having girl problems, I feel bad for you son.

10:07 PM: Some library pushups with Paul and Sudeep. My body is used to being asleep at 10:07 PM.

11:17 PM: Still at libs. Sitting in the Sudeep red chair corner. Late night studying, talking shit, just like the good old days. Shoutout to Jon Weil and Kaleb Keyserling, thanks for helping me survive late nights at Kenyon. Living the bachelor dream. 

12:34 AM: Depart library after setting a late night library PR. 

1:07 AM: Sleep.

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2/10/13 SUN

9:25 AM: Phone buzzes, text from Katie: Pray I catch my train. It might be close. 

Ken to God: There's a 100% chance Katie makes this train, I'm locking it in, but just in case, can you make sure she makes it? Back to sleep.

9:33 AM: Phone buzzes, text from Katie: At my gate ready to go! Phew! 

Back to sleep. 

9:34 AM: Wait, should I go to church? Back to sleep.

10:45 AM: Finally get out of bed - make breakfast, wash the dishes, laundry, cook lunches. This must be one of the big downsides of being single in med school. So much time doing chores, although at least I got to catch up on a great BS podcast:

7:20 PM: Reunited:

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Playing For Change

Some American producer travelled the world with his friend, recorded street artists playing the same song, then he mashed them together. The result is Playing For Change.

"Inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music."

This gives me hope that there are still people in the world producing good things.

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Everyday I'm Shufflin pt 2: Library Muscle Club

 #2

Everyday I'm Shufflin is a series of posts chronicling life as a med student.

Study week #4 just started. Done with lectures for a week - except for the lucky few who still have hospital visits and small group - nothing to do but study, for a whole week. 

sidenote - here's how studying usually progresses: the first time I look at material I'm confused, the second time I'm familiar with the words, and the third time the concepts start to click, and at this point it's kind of fun. Study week is terrible because you've already read this material a few times, and it's not fun anymore. You have to force feed words like glutamine phosphoribosylamidowtftransferase into your brain. No one is happy about it, and you can feel the tension in the air. It's no wonder physicians self-medicate. 

The beginning of study week is by far the worst, when everyone's dead serious and gunning for honors. Usually the tension wanes away by the end of study week, when everyone's in burned-out-zombie mode. At that point it becomes fun again because you spend all your time procrastinating.

But to get to the end of study week, the only way we can survive is through camaraderie. We can only do this together. Enter - Library Muscle Club (LMC). 

look at that form

I hate push ups. I'm a long distance runner. My optimal race distance is probably somewhere between 15 and 50 miles. Fast twitch muscle fibers are not my thing, but about a month ago, through peer pressure, which is always good, I was forced into doing 25 push ups in the library. It reminded me that I hate push ups, so I decided one of my New Year's Resolutions would be 10,000 pushups during the calendar year of 2013. That probably says a lot about me..

Anyways, a few of us have been gathering in the stairway between the third and fourth floors of the library to do pushups as a study break. We're trying to actively recruit new members. Fortunately, Sudeep is a master of peer pressure. You can't say no to that guy. I feel like we've peaked at about ten people. It's funny to have ten people doing push ups in a library corridor, you can't get that anywhere else.

You might be wondering if the library is a weird place to do push ups. It is. But we have to do them. Here's why: because it builds camaraderie, which is the only way to survive this god forsaken place. It also keeps you awake. And it intersperses exercise throughout your day, which should help keep your stress levels manageable. And because, fuck uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase. 

If you want to join us Library Muscle Club, you can find us here:

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

NBA Wednesdays. All Star rosters with Sean and Sean + Gimme some raptor news

Sean Nguyen

Sean Edelman

Virtual coffee date with Sean Nguyen my friend from MUSC, and Sean Edelman my friend from Kenyon. Two Seans + NBA All Star game rosters + Rudy Gay trade = great NBA Wednesday.

Ken: So let's start with the all star rosters: 

East: Rondo, Wade, LeBron, Melo, KG, Jrue, Kyrie, Bosh, Chandler, Joakim, Paul George, Luol

West: CP3, Kobe, KD, Blake, D12, Parker, Westbrook, Duncan, Zbo, LaMarcus, Harden, David Lee

Nguyen: The votes are pretty accurate in terms of representing the all-stars in our league. I would have to disapprove with not having Steph Curry on the reserve.. I know they do it by position now but he has been playing exceptional and he deserved a spot. 

Ken: Between Blake, Duncan, Zbo, LMA, Lee you already have 5 big guys. I'd take Steph Curry over D12. You could also talk me into Serge or Marc Gasol, especially when you consider how fun it would be to watch Serge in a glorified exhibition game. Also, Denver is playing .600 ball don't they deserve an all star?

Nguyen: Denver is a balanced team.. no one all star.. even their star Iguodala is playing average...(on my fantasy team).. 

Blake Griffin aint bout dis life

I agree with you. I'd love to see Ibaka but for an all star game Blake Griffin at the PF is more exciting to watch. Also I agree on the notion of too many big men. I'd trade one of them for steph curry any day. But I think Steph Curry's injuries over the year have clouded the fans/media memory of him. 

D12 is the modern day embodiment of the all star game. I can still remember his superman get up for the dunk contest. I think he is a celebrity icon that has the personality to entertain the people. If the all star weekend was all talent, then we would have lebron james in the dunk contest...but sadly we do not.    

On a sidenote, I hope kevin durant can finally win the 3 point shooting contest.. he's been in it for 2 years now barely losing to k-love last year. 

Edelman: I think the issue with Denver is how rounded out their offensive attack is. They don't have any clear superstar leader with 6 players averaging 10 or more pts per game. I would argue Faried might be the best candidate off that team to be an all-star since he's averaging 12 pts and 9.8 boards per game, but he's a second year player with little name recognition. Ty Lawson could be another possible all-star but the west is just way too deep at PG to give him a consideration.

face of Brooklyn

So Brook Lopez is Rondo's replacement. Thoughts? 

I think his offensive numbers definitely deserve the nod, but it bothers me that he is 7 feet tall and yet is awful at rebounding and defense. 

Nguyen: Brook Lopez who has been doing work should've had a spot over kg.... Paul Pierce has had a semi decent year and with his team struggling I think the star scorer gets the blame so I can see how he is overlooked.

Edelman: I would've liked to see JR fill the Rondo spot, but that's my biased Knick fan opinion and JR has pretty much shot himself out of contention with his awful month of January. 

What do you guys think about Monte or Brandon Jennings as the replacement? Milwaukee is above .500 and while both are very one sided players, isn't that the nature of the all-star game?

Ken: I'd be wary of Monta Ellis, considering how much they've improved since he left.  sidenote - Rudy Gay trade just broke: 

The Raps finally replaced Vince Carter's spot with Rudy Gay, a career 18 ppg/ 6 rpg guy that outstayed his time in Memphis. If I'm a Raps fans, I'm pumped. Is this team headed to the NBA finals? Of course not, and who cares? 

Toronto, welcome to the era of
7 seconds or less

Kevin Durant and LeBron James are by far the two best players in basketball right now. The two of them will be trading titles for the next 5 yrs. 

At least this trade makes the Raps exciting. Gay-DeRozan-Ross-Lowry-Bargnani. Wow, non-stop offense.

Nguyen: The Rudy Gay trade is good for basketball in Toronto. It makes for some interesting dynamics, especially for a run and gun team. 

I do not know how I feel about Memphis' ability to contend now. I know Tayshaun and Ed Davis are perfect for the system but I am still hesitant that they changed their dynamics too much. I do agree that Rudy Gay was a ball stopper in Memphis and that killed their flow. I do not think Toronto will be any different without a change in defense. You're surely not going to get it out of DeRozan and Gay.  To me, I feel like this a very similar team to the Nuggets and to some extent Golden State. 

Edelman: I love the deal for Memphis. Gay is one of the most overrated players in the league. Yes he does score a lot of points and can be an offensive force, but he's like melo on a bad day, incredibly inefficient and stops the flow of the offense. Tayshaun Prince is an obvious upgrade defensively for them, but in my opinion he's also a better offensive player for their system. 

all in

The strength of the Grizzlies offense lies down low with Zbo and Gasol and they benefit from having players on the wings who can hit 3-point shots when the defense collapses inwards. Prince is an complete upgrade in that regard as he's a career .370 3-point shooter who's shooting an absurd .434 this season. Gay, on the other hand, is a career .344 3-point shooter who's only shooting .310 from behind the arc this season. Add in the addition of Ed Davis, who's still a big question mark with plenty of upside, and the Grizz look like winners on this one.

I agree with Ken that the Raptors have now become a really fun to watch team. All offense and no defense, reminds me of Amare's first season with the Knicks. That being said, I think Toronto isn't done making trades yet this year. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to move Barg to a playoff-contending team in need of an extra wing scorer.

Ken: Ok that's all for this week -

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Everyday I'm Shufflin pt 1 - A statistical analysis of studying with flash cards

I decided to change my series of posts chronicling the things that consume the day and night of a med student from "About That Life" to "Everyday I'm Shuffling." 

This decision was important enough to me that I felt I had to tell you about it. I spend a large part of my days thinking about catchy titles to posts. About That Life sounded cool, but I'm not sure how much sense it makes. Everyday I'm Shuffling sounds cool and makes a ton of sense - med school feels like you do the same thing over and over day after day. Pre-read, zone out during lectures, make coffee, flash cards, take self-assessments, make more coffee. It never ends. 

Appropriately, the first Everyday I'm Shuffling is a small statistical study on shuffling flash cards. Enjoy.

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#1

I was going through my online flash cards to see how much kidney physiology I remembered. Turns out, not a lot. sidenote - ever since I realized med school was just another hoop before the powers-that-be will let us start learning real medicine, I've been trying to figure out how to game med school. So while I was studying, a question came to me - what's the minimum number of flash cards I could go through to know my score for the whole stack. In other words, what's the smallest significant sample size? 

So I sent this late night email to my mathematically inclined friend:

I have a virtual stack of 461 flash cards on digestive physiology. I can randomize the order I get the cards in. Assuming 461 cards is a big enough sample size to give me a statistically significant percentage correct, how many cards is the smallest significant sample size? ie - how many cards to get rid of the noise? 

My friend's guess was 30-40. Another friend guessed 50-120. Another friend used an online calculator to say with 95% confidence you'd need 210 cards. Wow, if it's really 210 cards I might as well just do the whole pile.

Whatever this magic number is, it's important because I can go through that many cards in any of my stacks - biochemistry, embryology, anatomy - and figure out what I should spend my time studying instead of wasting my time reviewing facts that I already have down.

As a good scientist, I put this hypothesis to the test. Here were the results from round one, Ken vs Gastrointestinal physiology:

30% @ question 10
36% @ q25 
36% @ q300 (WOW talk about consistency)
42% @ q461

My friend was weary of n = 1, so I put in a round two, Ken vs biochemistry:

90% @ q10 (great!)
84% @ q25 (getting sadder)
78% @ q50 (still getting sadder)
75% @ q391 (fuck this)

I did a third trial for good measure, Ken vs anatomy: 

70% @ q10
76% @ q25
85% @ q100
83% @ q410

Based on this data, I'd say somewhere between 50-100 flashcards, although the data from that first experiment is enticing. Anyways, I should probably go back to studying..

sidenote - this idea just occurred to me, anyone up for trying this same experiment on my (or your) flashcard pile?

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Relationships in med school pt 7: So you think you know Sudeep Das

An interview with the one and only, Sudeep Das. He was nervous to be interviewed.

Ken: So Sudeep, tell us where you come from.

Sudeep: Well, I just graduated from Vandy undergrad. I was born in Columbia, lived in Charleston as a kid, and grew up in Rock Hill since I was 8. 

Ken: OK, can you summarize yourself into 3 words?

Sudeep: I'm brown, I love fishing, and I love Jesus.

K: Nice, you're a pro at this. Let's get started: What do you like most about being in med school?

S: I have several things.

K: Pick just one.

S: It's really bad but I'm struggling between people and fishing. But I know people are supposed to be more important so people. But fishing is a close second - being in Charleston is amazing for that. 

vandy

I was worried coming to Charleston because I've already invested four years into my relationships at Vandy. But having been here for a couple months I can already tell that the time I spent learning how to make friends is paying off. I've been here for half a year and I already feel like I have friends I could know for the rest of my life. I've just been really impressed with my peers. There are some smart dudes here.

Sorry women too. Ken you definitely have to edit this crap.

K: Oh yeah for sure, don't worry, just say whatever you want. Followup question - How would you describe your ideal friend?

S: Someone I can have honest communication with. I need someone that I can talk with truthfully, without any sugar coating. I can call him out, and he can call me out. Someone you can just be real with.

K: Switching gears, token med school question - what sort of doctor do you want to be?

S: I hate this question. I used to think surgery because I love working with my hands - fishing, working with my car, that sort. I did rat surgery for a summer, and at first it was awesome, but the coolness factor can really wear off. When I was at Vandy I also volunteered at a migrant hospital, and I got to see the personal side of medicine. Dealing with people.

fish surgery. gone bad.

I don't think you get that same personal interaction in surgery. Or the longitudinal care. So I'm thinking something like med-peds? I also like having the capacity that ER docs have, that's cool. 

K: Switching gears again - your ideal wife?

S: Pretty.

K: Of course.

S: That's a hard question, it's probably similar to what I said about my ideal friend. Someone that will challenge me personally and spiritually. Someone that puts up with my fishing obsession. Someone that's willing to do crazy things, like make $240,000 a year, but give away $200,000 of it and live really cheaply. 

K: What about hair color? 

S: Green or blue.

K: Always?

S: No, just sometimes.

K: Ok, ok. Good to know. Any last words you really want everyone to know about you?

S: I don't know if I'm the better Sudeep. I have some stiff rivalry in that category. 

K: ..

S: Something else? Well, I guess I hate 
having superficial conversations, I like challenging and deep conversations. I get bored of talking about crap.

K: There you have it. Sudeep Das.

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Brother Ali - "Good Lord"

Some words from a blind, albino, Muslim rapper:

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

half-baked idea - New M1/M2 class: Patient Care Technician

Brian Still, Jordan Shealy, Kaleb Keyserling

Thanks to Brian Still, Jordan Shealy, and Kaleb Keyserling for helping me with this post. Brian worked as a Patient Care Tech, Jordan was an Anesthesia Tech, and Kaleb was a nursing assistant.

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Here's one of my frustrations about med school.  We came here because we wanted to help people. Specifically, sick people. So we spent four years of undergraduate lives putting up with insane BS to get here. Now that we've arrived, we put up with more BS. We have to spend our time on pretend patient write ups, study endless details about mechanisms of drugs that aren't even used in clinics. What if we had a chance to actually do something useful.. AND learn something? 

We have a class called Fundamentals of Patient Care - where we learn things like measuring blood pressure, follow around nurses to learn about what non-doctors do as a part of the medical team, generally learn about non-classroom things. Except the problem is - we do it in a classroom. Are you sitting? Good, because I'm about to drop a ground breaking idea on you - what if we learned non-classroom things, not in a classroom?

Hear me out. Let's bring pre-M1's to campus 8 weeks earlier and put them through a combined orientation/PCT training. It'd be a great time to bond with classmates without the awkwardness of orientation, and it'd be exposure to the clinic. Then, after those 8 weeks the M1's would be certified to be patient care tech's at hospitals.

On top of that M2's would arrive early to do the M1 training. This would double as M2-to-M1 mentoring, but also provide clinically relevant summer jobs for M2's to pad their resume's. Everyone wins.  

sidenote - at USC Greenville they have a similar program where M1's arrive early to become EMT's. This idea ALREADY exists. If MUSC is truly the flagship South Carolina med school, it has to get on board with the shift of med school education to clinical training.

Here's the part that might be unpopular.. we'd put M1's and M2's on a monthly shift at the hospital 7 PM to 7 AM shift.  Would it be a lot of work?  Yes, but we could replace many things. Hospital visits would be out, so that's 4 hrs per 6 wks. Small group would be gone - 3 hrs per week. We could also get rid of classes where we learn how to talk to patients, learn to deal with minority groups, understand healthcare disparities, etc. Plus the senior mentor program because we'd be seeing elderly patients every shift. That's probably 4 hrs per 6 wks, which adds up to 17 hrs per month. You would actually be saving time, plus making yourself useful during your pre-clinical years. 

sidenote - Isn't there also some valuable to starting from the bottom of the totem pole?  Shouldn't future leaders of healthcare teams have to understand the jobs of the techs? Shaving a patients private areas, measuring blood glucose, putting cushions under comatose patients to prevent sores. 

This would also give med students a greater appreciation for vital signs, which are interestingly enough, called vital signs because they are vital.  If we could make diagnoses and understand physiology better from a vital sign perspective, it would pay dividends for saving money on excessive diagnostic tests. 

This would also improve interprofessional communication because med students that went through this program would have better relationships with nurses.

EVERYONE WINS.

And to pile it on, what about the Malcolm Gladwell Outliers 10,000 hr theory - we need 10,000 hours of doing anything before we can truly become great at it?  Shouldn't we be devoting as much time as possible to hit that 10,000 hrs of patient care time as soon as we can? The answer is yes, as future doctors we should be investing our energy in becoming good future doctors.

See you on the other side,

from ken

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