Saturday, May 16, 2009

cheater part 2

It's hard to make small talk in med school. "So done with class...I guess probably since I'm also done with class. Uh, what are you working on..Besides the only subject we have. What do you think of the Bears' draft pick...I don't really have time to follow either. Boy this weather is nice...or it looks that way from the one window at the back of class. Anyway! Talk to you later I'm heading this way...and you are too. Because we are both going to the library."

Med school does not lend itself to studying in public spaces. I get really into what I'm trying to learn, and because it's on the body, I'm often the best demonstration. So as I try to figure out the dermatomal sensory distribution of the ulnar nerve, I end up looking up 30 seconds later as the entire library has stopped to watch me slam my elbow down on my desk trying to hit just the right spot to recreate the knocked out nerve.

In Guatemala, they were selling something called, "Fun Station". It looked like a playstation, but it was not. It came with one cartridge and advertised 9,999,999 games. Apparently it has small variations in each game, like game speed, that they count as a whole new game. Not a single house we went to in the entire area even has a tv. Now I'm not one to fuss over marketing, but I think this team of expert advertisers may have missed their mark.

I went hiking in Guatemala recently and our guide was a Mayan 26 year old with two kids, 13 years of paramilitary experience and just enough Spanish to communicate with our shitty Spanish. My hope for the world rests in the fact that he found our farts as funny as we did.

I was walking past a girl in the library who had something written on the back of her shirt that said, "You can always retake a test, but..." I walked past too fast to see what the rest said, but I liked where this was going.

It really bugs me when I meet someone busier than me. "Oh sorry, I can't do Monday, how about Tuesday?" "Oh really? Because I'm an attending neurosurgeon, my triplets are having their birthday this week and my NIH grants proposals are due this weekend. You sure you can't make time Monday?" "Well I guess I could just watch Heroes on nbc.com. It's actually just a rerun. Yeah Monday sounds fine John Storm MD PhD MPH JD".

A study following 1000s of people for 2 years determined, with complex statistical analysis, that the best indicator of future suicide, is past suicide attempts. That's brilliant. Thank you. The scientific community can sleep soundly knowing you all figured that conundrum out.

There are experiments where they hook an animal up to an IV and allow them to push a lever that will administer cocaine. If you allow the animal to self administer the cocaine whenever it wants, it will stop mating, stop eating, stop drinking, and push that lever until death in 2 days. It will take 2 days to seizure out and kill itself... Fucking best 2 days of his life! Whoo, Vegas, here we come! ...No, seriously, don't do drugs. Scrambled egg and all that.

So in a move of scientific brilliance, chemists decided that since pot causes appetite increase, if they could create a molecule that does the exact opposite of pot, it could reduce appetite and be a diet drug. It worked. Oh, except for the fact that the exact opposite effect of pot is severe, severe depression. Probably should have seen that one coming.

I'm not going to steal medical supplies. I'm not going to write scripts for myself. I'm not going to discuss my patients tooth to tatoo ratio. But the instant I learn how, I'm going to hook my ass up to an IV to cure a hangover.

Great, so now oral sex can spread STDs. Can't a hedonistic brother get a break? Is there anything fun that doesn't cause STDs or cancer? I'm gonna be stuck with hand-jobs and "runners high" for the next 60 years until I hit 80, then fuck it, someone get me some heroin.

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