once.i.had.an.original.thought

i think i'm over it

2007-08-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

i like the idea of blogging, but i don't like the one-sidedness of it. i'd rather have conversations, and i think that blogs lead me to being a poor conversationalist. not that i've done much reading or writing in blogs lately, but once i cut back, i realized i was glad i did.

i bid you all goodbye, and i hope we meet in the land of face-to-faceness. that will be much more fun for me.

another movie

2007-08-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

i watched Jesus Camp last night. it was interesting, and i did a little research, and supposedly no one portrayed in the movie had any objection to how they looked. except ted haggard, and that was only after his scandal broke a few months after the movie came out.

the thing that came back to me was how those in the movie made christianity into something militant. i know there are many passages in the bible that refer the the armor of god and comparing life to war. but does that make us militant? does it make us want to build up an army against our enemies? it seems to make sense, that i should fight in any way those who oppose the things i believe (as long as what i believe falls in line with "god's will"). but i don't think i can be sure of anything that much, certain enough to bring arms against my neighbors. at least now, i have more hope that things will be better and i won't have to perform militant acts, than i have faith that what i believe demands action. i am sure of very few things. i'm not sure if that makes me faithless.

the truth

2007-07-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

i think i accept what is easiest to believe before i accept what is true. i've seen this more and more in people and in myself.

i saw a patient who had a problem that medicine could not cure the way he wanted it to be cured. it wasn't quick enough or long-lasting, so he went to an "alternative medicine" doctor to get a quicker fix. this doctor told him the best way to cure disease is to get more oxygen in your body. this is easy to believe. it makes sense if you want it to. so he believed it and shoved a hydrogen peroxide enema up his ass and got a severe chemical burn to his rectum.

the easy answers to believe are the ones that make my life easier. i can convince myself that i am happy the way i've always been. it's easiest not to change, and it's easiest to believe that i will be happy if i don't change. if i stay the same person as i am right now, 10 years from now i'll be just as happy. it makes since, but it's scary, however, when i start to change.

the truth is, i won't be happy 10 years from now if i stay the same. and i'm not trying to change, but i am. i want to keep my guard up. i want to lock myself up and just be who i've always been. but i can't, because i'm changing.

i never thought i would fall in love. i never wanted to. i always pictured myself alone. that's changing.

i never wanted to see the bad in people. i always looked for the small good that i saw in a person. i always loved the lovable. i never wanted to see bad, but now i do. it's hard to love people who you can't see good in, but i'm meeting more of them every day. learning to love people who are easy to hate is totally new for me. it's not happening quickly, or noticeably, but it's there.

i always wanted to know everything. i probably got into medicine because i wanted to be the smartest and the best. that's changing. nothing like hanging around really smart people to make a decently smart person feel dumb. but i'm starting to become ok with it.

changes are good, and the truth is i would probably hate myself if i didn't change from now to 35 years old. it would be easy, but i'm not the person i am now. i'm changing, and i'm just now realizing it. it's kind of cool.

sicko

2007-07-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

i got the chance to see the new michael moore movie yesterday. it was interesting. it was well-made. it was incredibly one-sided. everything i've come to expect from mr. moore.

i see where he is coming from. he wants america to socialize its medical care. it would provide care for everyone, which is a good thing. it would be "free" which is a good thing for people who need it but can't afford it. but it's paid for, just by other people.

the facts that moore throws into the movie are pretty far-fetched. he makes claims without stipulations, such as saying that the french live longer than americans because of their health care. they don't. they live longer because they live healthier lifestyles and there is much less crime, not because their health care system is better. so if you see it, consider big pictures, not just what he says. is it true literally, versus can it be applied to what he is trying to express with it?

anyway, getting back on subject... you cannot mix capitalism and socialism. america is a capitalist nation, for good or for bad, and the health care and pharmaceutical companies are private companies. they earn money. and one way they do this is innovation. they brought us many medical advancements on their way to making themselves a dollar. also, consider a group of people (250 million) who are paying for health care and are used to getting good care. now think about soccer moms sitting in "clinic 119" for 6 hours waiting to see a doctor that was assigned to the clinic for the day.

i can't think of much good coming from socialized medicine. people without health care can get care for free. they go to the ER and i see them every day. so you reduce the quality of care for the 250 million people who pay for it to provide mediocre care for everyone.

please don't take sicko as it is. it's not true. it raises good questions, but think thoroughly before you take things as fact.

sometimes

2007-06-13T14:34:00.001-07:00

every once in a while, you wonder. why do stupid things happen that really don't help anything? people are stupid, and little people are a lot more stupid. monday, a 14-year-old little turtledumpster burned down the inverness country club. that's where kelly and i are having our wedding reception. my first reaction was laughing, because something like that has to be a joke. right?

i'm in birmingham, and i'm relaxing for a couple weeks. it's great. i had one of the greatest weekends ever. went to the lake for the day saturday, went to kelly's house for an early father's day dinner and ended up having a surprise party, then went back to the lake. i spent an extra day there alone, because i haven't been alone and totally by myself in about 2 years. living with a roommate is cheaper, and it's encouraging a lot of the time to see that someone is going through the same hell you are, but you want a little space sometime. kelly and i will reach that point some day soon. but for now, it's great to hang out with her while i'm not tired and worrying about the next upcoming test.

i'm with clint. the new wilco is pretty damn good. if you disagree with me, i will gladly fight for your right to disagree. but you'll still be wrong.

better than syphilis

2007-06-06T04:02:00.001-07:00

today i take my big test. i woke up at 330, haven't been back asleep since then. i was hoping to celebrate hard after the test, but i might have to nap hard first.

if anyone has any interesting biomedical science questions, now is the time to ask. this evening, i am chunking all irrelevant material out of my brain to make room for real medicine.

over the river and through the woods

2007-06-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

kelly and i are probably (not for sure) going to the over the rhine concert in nashville on june 8. it should be banging to the n-th degree. i've been listening to them for a little over a year. she has a voice. it has a quality that you can't describe, rough and sexy with a jazzy quality that makes you wonder where she grew up.

anyone coming with us?

mary, did you know?

2007-05-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

we talked today about misconceptions we had concerning the practice of medicine before we started our trek to the finish line of actually being medical professionals. when i was little, i thought the doctor fixed people. anything that happened to me would be fixable. if there was a disease, uncle charlie (my pediatrician until i was 21) would make it right. it wasn't until medical school that i discovered that you can't fix cancer or diabetes or COPD. chronic disease was more chronic than the day you had to wait before you could get in to see uncle charlie.

we also laughed about the "there's nothing you can take for a virus" bit. there is. it's more for when you get bad off if your body is having a hard time throwing the virus down on the floor and beating the virus's virion to bits. but there are pharmacological answers to viruses.

WARNING: for anyone with a little monster being tore up by a virus - DON'T GIVE THEM ASPIRIN. NEVER GIVE A CHILD ASPIRIN. DON'T DO IT. YOU MIGHT CAUSE THEM TO GET REYE'S WHICH = BAD.

and the appendix. i know about 20 people who have had theirs taken out. little do they know, but statistically most of them (from what i've heard) didn't need it. but it's a quick and easy procedure and catches a potentially life threatening ailment before it happens. but it's not always needed because the appendix is not always inflamed. drugs could help many time, but better safe than sorry. and you get a sweet scar.

sleeping pills. i took one an hour ago. i'm dead in my body but my brain wants to work. i didn't know about sleeping pills unitl that green butterfly entered commercials on FOXNEWS. i like them.

sometime soon i will blog about the new michael moore movie. i like his questions. i like what he is trying to do. this film could be important if he doesnt make an ass out of himself just trying to get to the point. sometime soon i hope to blog about alternative/homeopathic/non-evidence based medicine. that will be fun also.

i salute you, mr pettis

2007-05-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

next thursday, the day after i take my big test, i get to see pierce pettis play in a tiny venue. i think that could be one of the greatest shows i will ever see. he has so many amazing things to say with his music. i listened to his complete discography on the way to birmingham, then again on the way back to mobile. some of my favorite lines

Everything matters if anything matters at all.

We're all in this together, but we're all in this alone.

In it's wake the razor's edge leaves only a thin red line.

i could go on, but i'm studying. those three really stuck out to me this weekend. if anyone wants to join kelly and i, let me know. also, we might be going to the over the rhine concert friday night in nashville. that one is still up in the air though.

deficiency of c6-c8 leads to neisseria bactermia

2007-05-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

there's a new poll out that evaluates muslim reactions to suicide bombings. it found that about 25% of muslim youths think that suicide bombings in defense of Islam are justified even when killing innocent bystanders.

i'm not totally sure what to think about the poll, either the point of it or what we should take away from it. i do know that the media is using it to whip people into a frenzy against american muslims. i think another interesting poll would research the number of americans who see muslim youths and think that they support suicide bombers.

one thing i've been thinking about is how when we marginalize and force people into molds, it becomes easier to fit into the molds. when we use violence and a "we must dominate" frame of mind, we turn everyone who is not with us into our enemy. does categorizing or making polls about suicide bombings change people's opinions about themselves? if i were something bad, say a staunch right wing republican (just kidding) and everyone knew that and assumed that about me, does it make it easier and more fulfilling to be an extreme staunch right wing republican?

the title is a line from the page i'm open to right now. if you have a congenital deficit of certain proteins, you get gonorrhea a lot more often. could you use that to your advantage? "i swear, it's just my genes, hillary. i did not touch that woman." anyway, i'm studying immunity and STDs. why am i thinking about polls?

negativity is a bitch

2007-05-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

so we take these "practice tests" to evaluate how we will do on our big test coming up. our dean of curriculum factors in all these grades we've made and combines the practice test and give us an estimate. she told me i would fail.

negativity is a bitch. if you have a huge test in about a month, you want a little encouragement. you want to think that what you are doing will help you out. when the dean tells you that you will fail, you kind of want to quit studying. i think she's trying to prod us on, but there are other ways of doing it. such as saying that you will actually pass. i KNOW i will pass. i'm in the middle of my class gradewise, and this test has a high passing percentage (somewhere around 90% of people pass). but she tells me i will fail by about 10 points.

the ways she got our grade (but didn't tell us until long after she told about half the class they would fail) was by only taking our practice test grade the practice test is taken by students days away from taking the real test. these people have studied for a month (which i'm in the process of doing) so of course we won't do as well. we had just finished the semester 3 days before. she didn't mention that our grade was what we would have gotten if we took it that day, she told us we would fail.

i'm just venting, but if you have the chance to encourage someone by tearing them down like a total asshole, don't do it. it's annoying as hell.

revamping by minimalizing

2007-05-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

i'm losing the computer during my study time. i waste a gross amount of time on it, and it serves me no purpose at all. at some point i'll start taking online tests to practice, but i can do those in the computer lab. so i'm cutting my cord for the next few weeks. damn it feels good.

i will still use it at night when i get home, but it's weighing me down studying. less is more.

movie suggestions?

2007-05-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

i signed up for blockbuster total access yesterday, and i'm excited to announce that the first three DVDs of West Wing Season 6 are on the way. that makes me excited, because now i don't HAVE to watch law and order every night, i actually will have choices. next year, i don't know if i want cable since it's so expensive. $100 a month for cable and internet sounds a little steep for me to deal with. i hope that someone around me will have internet for me to sneak onto. if not, i can deal with it. i'm getting tired of being on the interweb so much.

another thing that makes me happy is pierce pettis. i've been listening to him quite a bit (i got off the wagon for a couple months, but i'm glad to be back on) so i checked the old website today. he's playing a "house show" in birmingham in june. basically you get folding chairs and beer and go and sit in someone's house and watch him. it should be great if i can get in. i sent them an email today requesting tickets. i don't know how it will work exactly, but i would be totally thrilled to see him live in a small setting.

also, back to the movie thing, if anyone has any must see recommendations for me, let me know. i dig TV shows more than movies usually, and good concerts probably more than anything. but movies can be good. so let me have any suggestions that i might not have heard of. i'd 'preciate it.

-4

2007-05-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

well, it's been 4 days since i ended my second year of med school. this weekend was good fun, full of awkward moments between future in-laws, and a needed break.

the speaker at our ceremony recited a poem about little kids going to the beach. i tried to find it for you all, but the interweb is too vast with too many poems about the ocean. the kids all had the same experience, but everyone came away with something different. one with a shell, one with memories of a monster chasing her sideways, one with a sunburn. it was showing how all the students could approach medicine but come away with different ideas. i hope i'm the one who finds something beautiful in there.

some day soon i'll write about something interesting that i care about. until then, i'm studying for step 1, which is june 6. that's the big test that the first two years were supposed to prepare me for. we took a practice version of it this morning, and surprisingly i remembered a couple things.

and i'll end it with a super-blurry picture of kelly and myself.

1

2007-05-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

today is my last day of studying for biomedical science tests. except for the board.

i like the fact that there is no new material to learn this summer. i can concentrate on the eight or nine hundred hours of material that they have given us without cramming new stuff into my brain. i'll be learning to reach deep into my cranium and pull stuff out that i forgot i forgot i knew. should be interesting, but i'm definitely looking forward to a more normal type of review.

kelly is coming in to mobile tomorrow. and my family and hers. it will be a lot of fun. she's staying an extra day so we can hang out without the fam's being there, which is nice.

i wish i had more interesting things to say, but i can assure you that you would rather i not bring up what i am studying now. unless you're reading this before you go to bed. then it might be the perfect sleeping med.

2

2007-05-02T12:13:00.001-07:00

i have two days left. one test. today was a distaster, but i don't care. i have two days left.

we're playing another game of night ultimate tonight. should be fun.

3, or 'why didn't the growth hormone fairy visit last night?'

2007-05-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

so i've decided that it's not a good idea to do a lot of exercise late at night, then take lunesta to fall asleep.

i got a call about 9 last night for a game of "lights out" ultimate frisbee. we play on a pretty regular basis, and after half of my class went to the beach earlier in the day, i saw it for what it was - another way to avoid studying. so i immediately agreed.

it was dark, no lights except a few in the distance. we had a sweet frisbee that lights up. it was cool but really humid, and the ground was wet from the daily rain we get. about 12 of us got together and it was probably the most fun game of ultimate i've played in years.

i was so sore afterwards, mostly my calves and shins (i'm a little prone to shin splints). i hadn't slept well the night before due to a HUGE test i probably failed but can't bring myself to check my scantron. so here is a little medicine for all you folks out there. when you're sore and you have muscle breakdown from exercise, your body needs its nightly rebuilding hormones (mainly growth hormone). when you take lunesta or other sleeping pills, you don't get those.

my body got worked last night. i could hardly move when the alarm went off this morning. it was terrible. my mind was pretty slow from the pill, and i couldn't lift my legs. i dragged my upper body off my bed to hit the alarm on the floor then curled up in the fetal position and moaned. i am a big baby, but it's cool.

i only have 2 tests and 3 days left. i'm pretty happy right now.

4, or "why bother?"

2007-04-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

i just took a test. i don't think it would have mattered if i had studied for it or not. i would get the same grade if i had (choose the most efficacious option)

a.) stayed up all last night and gotten up at 6 to continue studying

b.) played wii until 3am and gotten up 10 minutes for the test

c.) gone to bed and gotten a good night's sleep, which hasn't happened in way too long

d.) trained a monkey to fill in scantron sheets

i chose option a, which got me nowhere. i like pharmacology. it's interesting beyond most of what we studied this year. but it's alphabet soup. drug names were not created considering what they would be used for. they're named, and then the creators sit in piles of money and laugh at stupid med students who have to learn hundreds of names of drugs that DO THE EXACT SAME DAMN THING.

so now i'm in the library, studying for our genetics final on wednesday. 4 days, 2 tests, then beer and wii.

5, or the first of the lasts

2007-04-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is my last regular test (not finals or boards) of my med school life. friday was our last lecture, and i picked up my last set of handouts from the front of the room this weekend. that's because i don't go to class and never remember to get them, but just hope that there are some left when i really need them. but i skipped my last lecture that i could have skipped.

much more than i enjoy my lasts, i'm looking forward to my firsts. my first day in the hospital, my first patient to evaluate on my own. my first time looking like a stupid ass in front of an attending. my first time connecting with patients who are hurting. my first time consoling families of patients who are no longer hurting. my first time being on this 'medical team' that steps in the dirt with people and gets muddy with them. i hope i'm that guy, not some arrogant doctor who thinks that your pain has nothing to do with me.

it's a big year in other ways also. getting married, getting my own place again (only to have kelly invade it shortly thereafter), battling my parents over booze at the rehearsal dinner. it should be fun.

so today, 5 days, 3 tests until the end of my lasts. i dig that in every dirty way possible.

6

2007-04-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

we're down to the home stretch here. 6 days, 3 tests, then freedom and wii until my heart's content (for 2 days). plus some beer and good food that weekend.

i found some guy's tribute to his daughter's first birthday. not only is she a cute little monster, but he's a pretty funny bastard comparing her thought processes to the republican party currently holding power. i recommend reading it.

7

2007-04-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

well, i'm almost there. a week from freedom. i'm back to studying diarrhea, diabetes, and endocrine problems. should be fun.

so i'm not really writing anything, but i want to link to a post by josh brown. i don't know him, but found his blog through other blogs and he has some really good series. write now he's writing on operation praying mantis and its effect on us today. so click here to read it.

i'm ready to get drunk and play wii in a week.

8

2007-04-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

so i have 4 tests left and 8 days. today i'm studying clinical medicine for the final in a few hours. i just started studying for it, mostly because i've been pissed at politics and stuff.

i ran into this video at nick's blog.

it makes me angry.

10, or get off the wagon

2007-04-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

well, pretty much the same thing today as yesterday, but i'll actually write something today.

i have an ever-developing annoyance with people who get on bandwagons for causes that they know little about. part of being on the offensive against things you disagree with is being informed. as GI Joe once said (i think it was him) "knowing is half the battle." we're like a bunch of lemmings when we hear something that sounds good. (speaking of lemmings, check out this sweet Sigur Ros video)

i've seen the whole lemming thing in a couple things lately. first, and probably most annoying because it takes only a small amount of thinking to realize it's ridiculous, is the DON'T BUY GAS ON MAY 15 bullshit. there are hundreds of thousands of members of facebook and myspace groups that are jumping on a bandwagon that they know nothing about. if they were to google "don't buy gas on" they would see that they are idiots and people are laughing at them. like me. it angers me, because people get upset when you point out that their bandwagon is going nowhere fast. reducing gas usage is a great idea, dropping the price is a good cause for some people (i think it should be higher), but get educated before you speak out.

the second is the derek webb messageboard. i know that some people who might be reading this have been around the block with some of these crazies. in the past couple weeks, the subjects of embryonic stem cell research and addiction have come up. watching these people talk about things they feel passionately about but will not get educated about is disheartening. i know their intentions are good, but they are misleading others with their 'facts.'

the third is probably the more infuriating for me, because it is potentially damaging to real people's lives, not just stupidity aimed at gas prices. some rich white girl wrote (and got paid to write) and article saying that the vaccine for HPV (which protects girls from getting cervical cancer) could kill thousands and cause infertility. this is nonsense, and she obviously did not do a lick of research for the article, but wrote out of her ass. people reading, however, are college-aged females who might avoid getting the vaccine because they don't want to die. so this writer could have (indirectly) talked girls out of a vaccine that could save their lives.

so i've been thinking about saving people from themselves lately. please, before you get on a bandwagon, think/read/talk about it and see how you can best assist the cause. the cause is probably good, as in all three cases, but the approach is terrible.

11

2007-04-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

warning - boring post about my life.

so i'm through with neuro forever. that's pretty cool. the national board exam was easier than any exam we've had so far in the class. that's good, but it kind of pisses me off that they (the licensing board) don't expect us to know what we learned in great depth, but my professors taught it to us in the minutest details anyway. but so it goes.

i'm now studying pharm. we have a couple tests in a different classes wednesday and thursday, but i'm putting them off for a little while. the pharm i'm studying now includes drugs for constipation, diarrhea, IBS, IBD, colon cleansers, ulcers, and other little odds and ends with the GI tract. bad news - diarrhea isn't that funny when you study it. unless the professor is asian and says "diarrear" and that's pretty funny.

12

2007-04-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

wii rules and rocks in the hardest of ways.

i have 12 days and 6 tests left before the end. tomorrow's test is over the subject of neuroanatomy. it's a national comprehensive miniboard. it will rock my face off in a much different way than wii does. but it will only get to manhandle me for 3 hours.

kelly is coming down 12 days also. so when i count down days left in hell, i get to simultaneously count down days until i get to see her. that's pretty cool.