display('programming sucks')

I'm learning to program (again), which is a lot like trying to learn to live in a world with a different set of physical laws, holding nothing but wikipedia.  It's like appearing in a world, wearing normal clothes, and the sun is shining, and people are walking around looking normal, so you try to take a step. Error.  Area (muscle) non-real index.

So your leg doesn't move. So you look up muscle.  Then you realize you need to know more than muscle, so you go looking for other stuff that is often cool, but you have no idea if you need it or not.  So you look up cell, nerve, desire, will-power, gravity, lactic acid, exhaustion, coordination, balance, track and field, world records, and walk-a-thon.  You try again. Your leg picks up and you try to extend your leg to land the step. Error. Undefined function or method 'step' for input arguments of "walk".

I respect the shit out of people who spend they're lives recreating the world through a made up series of logical operators, while listening to techno and monstering red bull.

This is what I think about when I'm on a research month

You will be locked in the same place for the rest of your life.  If you leave, even for a short time, you will be accompanied by a guard and in shackles.  You will get around 15 minutes of outdoors time per day, most days, weather permitting.  Exactly twice per day, you will be fed the same food you are always fed with no variation.  You may have water when you need it.  You will receive special goods and services, but only upon witnessed and continued good behavior.  You will speak only when spoken to, and never too loudly.  You will be castrated.

FREE DOGS!!!

You can take my freedom, but you can't take the word Dong.

I was taking this test where we see standardized patients*, take a history and physical on them, then write the whole thing up, come up with a differential diagnosis, and order some fake tests.  It's a timed test for both the interview and the write-up, so you tend to rush through and not care much about spelling and whatnot.  Still, I finished one patient and had a bit of time to review my write up, at which point I found this:

"64 year old female complaining of left sided chest pain following exertion.  Patient was taking her dong for a walk when she began feeling chest pain."

Hahahahahahahahaha, dong, hahahahahah, no but seriously, delete.

*note: Standardized patients are actors paid to pretend to have certain diseases and to give us information only when we ask the right questions.  It's a bit like a LARPing in terms of realness, skill at acting, and awkwardness.  

Pimp my expensive education

There is a thing in medicine called, "pimping". Basically, pimping is when a higher up doctor puts a lower down doctor or medical student on the spot in front of the group and makes them answer a question about medicine.  The idea is to see what a young doctor knows about a subject that comes up on patient rounds regarding their disease.  Although sometimes it's about history.  Or trivia. Sports sometimes.  I once saw an attending pimp a patient.  No joke, the patient was a PhD in physics and he started asking him who discovered some string theory equation.  The guy was like, uh I don't know, but my ankle reallyl hurts.  He was then told to read more. Pimping is as old as medicine* (there is a story in the bible where Jesus, right before healing a sick man, asks one of his disciples to name the 4 kinds of gastric ulcers, then smotes him and tells him to read more.  I think it's in John somewhere) and has a lot of surrounding controversy.

The controversy exists because it sort of sucks to be made to look like an idiot in front of a bunch of people.  Generally, the term "unnecessary humiliation" gets thrown around in sensitivity meetings.  On the other side of the coin is that fact that frankly, you learn a lot from being pimped.  Once you get over the shear terror that is being asked a factual question in front of a bunch of people you don't really know who will judge and grade you based on your answer, you swallow your fear, take a small poop in your pants, and give an answer.  You will either surprise yourself with what you know, or get the answer wrong and be told the correct answer.  I know some of the most obscure facts in medicine because the emotion associated with the question burned the answer into my brain parts (but let's be clear, that emotion is fear).

A good pimper, one who asks relevant and useful questions (see this post about the difference) without adding too much visible weight to the answer, will teach you more than you can imagine.  In fact, once med students get over the sharp pain of being pimped, many will agree that a rotation without pimping is a decidedly dull one.  A lot of being a med student is scut work; a term that means "shit" work.  "Call this nursing home", "make sure that CT got done", "walk this patient down the hall"; those are things I am asked to do on a daily basis.  Only paying 70 grand a year, NBD.  So getting a little extra teaching in the form of a jeopardy (because you are in actual danger) style learn-a-thon is not that unpleasant.

*Note: I once looked up the origin to the use of the word, "pimping" in medicine.  It doesn't seem novel now, since MTV pimps everything that can be bejeweled, but it is listed in books and articles in the 70's.

I've seen the trifecta

My school health insurance requires that if you aren't going to use the school health insurance, that your alternate insurance plan has this stipulation, "My plan does cover me for Sports injuries, alcohol-related injuries or conditions, eating disorders." ...I'm offended by your accuracy.