Today is Match Day. Today, thousands of medical students across the USA will be given a sealed envelope containing a description of where they will be going for residency. At noon, in every medical school, they will gather to simultaneously open those envelopes. These students have spent months applying and interviewing for various programs. Many will have spent hundreds of dollars and hours on applications, interview suits, travel expenses, and retail therapy in the pursuit of a place to give them the training … [Read more...] about Match Day: On Call
Health Care
Selection Bias: Statistical Integrity in Christian Community
One day a num ber of con cerned moth ers met with the min is ter to express their frus tra tion and anger over the unseemly con duct of a par tic u lar boy in Sun day School. They did not want their chil dren exposed to this child and feared what he rep re sented. For it seemed that this boy was mod el ing “bad behav ior” – ver bal out bursts that some times involved pro fan ity, a lack of sen si tiv ity to other children's per sonal space (occa sion ally bit ing them when irri tated or … [Read more...] about Selection Bias: Statistical Integrity in Christian Community
Rituals of Annotation
I am not exactly sure of what prompted me to do it, but I began keep ing a tally of all the pro nounce ments I have done. A pronouncement is that act in which a doctor officially declares a person to be dead. Some deaths are theatric spec tac les involving beep ing mon i tors, electric shocks, and crack ing chest car ti lage. These tend to be chaotic, gritty, and conclusive as in the TV shows, sometimes ending with a dis traught physician intoning, “Time of death. . . .” However, most pro nounce ments … [Read more...] about Rituals of Annotation
The Pursuit of Suffering
I watched the grainy, blocky video in silence. My friend was singing “Land slide” and I felt a cer tain taut ness in my eye brows and a pecu liar heavi ness in the cor ners of my mouth. By now it had become a famil iar feel ing, this phys i cal expres sion of sorrow. Can the child within my heart rise above Can I sail through the chang ing ocean tides Can I han dle the sea sons of my life?” ~Fleet wood Mac, “Land slide,” The Dance, 1997 Sonia Lee '06, whose mel low and res o nant voice was … [Read more...] about The Pursuit of Suffering
Introductions: Dissection of body and soul
Medical school is mostly boring and the parts that are not are often tragic, which is why few people write about the experience. Prospects facing newly-minted residents and attendings are not much better, as the overwhelming secularization of a discipline once seen as divine has fueled financial exploitation, divisive politics, and increasing frustration, cynicism, and disillusionment in those who once sought something more meaningful. While there have been exponential gains in scientific understanding and treatment … [Read more...] about Introductions: Dissection of body and soul