My co-worker just asked how I was and I said "fine" because it was easier than saying "I feel like shit and I want to go home but I don't want to go home because I don't like it there any more."

throwaway00000000005 · 2012-05-25T02:12:39.057988+00:00

That's a great answer, both honest and considerate of how your mood impacts those around you. That's how it's done folks.

cab360 · 2012-05-25T01:32:50.074855+00:00

Lots of good ideas there. Make sure to keep track of interest in your calculations. It can really add up, especially if it compounds during residency.

Clayburn · 1 day

"Roughly one third of the world's population has been infected with M. tuberculosis, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second on a global scale."

Tuberculosis is a weird disease. Once you are exposed, you can either be symptomatic or asymptomatic. You can be a dormant or active carrier. You can clear the disease or you may have a reservoir of disease that could reactivate at anytime.

No test can tell you if you completely cleared the disease or if you're a dormant carrier.

Clayburn · 1 day

You honed in on that one but left dandruff?

cab360 · 1 day

I agree, that application process was insane and dehumanizing.

Thanks for sharing those files, btw. You are the best.

cab360 · 1 day

How do you get $100,000+ in debt? Most schools have budgets of about $60k a year so you probably are looking at $240k+. The average indebtedness figure is the average of people who pay for med school and the people who have their parents pay (aka $0).

In reality, taking an average is misleading because the histogram is bimodal. People with lots of debt and people with none. Even when a student's parents take out a mortgage for them, that is counted as $0 debt since the school didn't loan the money.

Clayburn · 1 day

HIV is not contagious unless you have sex with someone or share a needle. For a lot of people here, there is a greater chance they will be bitten by a mosquito than have sex. Kidding, just pointing out the difference between "transmissible" and "contagious" doesn't mean a ton.

Clayburn · 1 day

Kind of, yes. You cannot distinguish between someone who has been exposed to TB and cleared the infection and someone who has been treated but still retains a dormant cyst of TB in their lung. You will always have the antibodies, will test positive, and will be cleansed in the upcoming genocide. Just like me.

Clayburn · 1 day

Yes. Look up the numbers on TB alone. Staggering. Dengue fever. Aids.

Dandruff.

rawrmufasa · 1 day

and the claim that the suit is Eco friendly is a bit of a joke. Just because you use some recycled plastic doesn't exactly make a build LEED certified.

accountt1234 · 1 day

I think he is getting at the fact that it is difficult to trust nuclear power in general because those in companies and government have conflicts of interest that encourage them to minimize the estimates of and response to an accident.

Alainite · 1 day

Listen, I told you I have a shitty job.

cab360 · 1 day

Listen to this person. My neighbor is a PA and he asked why I was pursuing an MD, not a PA. That was the hardest question I was asked during the whole interview cycle. I was just thinking about it last night. Damn good option.

es-335 · 1 day

Better sources:

The story did not say specifically where the statistic came from. However, the online version did include a link to an abstract of a medical study discussing abortion rates after a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. The study is from 1999 by the Psychology and Genetics Research Group at King's College in London. It compiled 20 other studies measuring abortion rates and concluded that, following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, 92 percent of women chose to have an abortion.

We searched and found other studies that showed similar percentages.

A study from researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan examined the cases of 145 pregnancies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome from 1988-97. The study found that 19 (13.1 percent) women chose continuation of the pregnancy, while 126 (86.9 percent) chose termination. Another study examined 131 prenatally diagnosed cases of Down syndrome in Hawaii from 1987-96. The study found that women in 110 of those cases (84 percent) chose to have their pregnancies terminated. A study in San Francisco published in 2006 found an overall rate of 81 percent.

es-335 · 1 day

Really, you'd do better you just google it yourself instead of making someone else do it.

The story did not say specifically where the statistic came from. However, the online version did include a link to an abstract of a medical study discussing abortion rates after a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. The study is from 1999 by the Psychology and Genetics Research Group at King's College in London. It compiled 20 other studies measuring abortion rates and concluded that, following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, 92 percent of women chose to have an abortion.

We searched and found other studies that showed similar percentages.

A study from researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan examined the cases of 145 pregnancies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome from 1988-97. The study found that 19 (13.1 percent) women chose continuation of the pregnancy, while 126 (86.9 percent) chose termination. Another study examined 131 prenatally diagnosed cases of Down syndrome in Hawaii from 1987-96. The study found that women in 110 of those cases (84 percent) chose to have their pregnancies terminated. A study in San Francisco published in 2006 found an overall rate of 81 percent.

es-335 · 1 day

So here is how it works: when somebody provides a citation and you don't like it, it's up to you to provide a better citation. I admitted that my source is not great. However it is infinitely better than no source. You provided no source.

es-335 · 1 day

You know, I had that same thought myself. However, all women with basic prenatal care get ultrasounds and ultrasounds are sufficient to diagnose abnormalities. These women still overwhelmingly choose abortion.

thetokenginger · 2 days

Right on. Just a little point, thank nature. In science, we just try to figure all that shit out. Nature is what makes it happen.

es-335 · 2 days

Can't find a great source quickly and the number varies, here is what I could dig up before I had to get back to work:

Although it is estimated that between 80 and 95 percent of parents receiving a severe prenatal diagnosis choose to end the pregnancy, those who face this nightmare often feel alone.

http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/

es-335 · 2 days

Just to put this in perspective, when parents discover their child has a developmental or genetic abnormality, well over 90% choose to terminate. Many people are against abortion until it is they who have an inconvenient pregnancy.

dave723 · 2 days

This is a good observation and something we talk about in labs quite often. People look forward to unexpected breakthroughs. Things like gene therapy or RNAi or even commercial production of recombinant Ab. However there is usually a lag of about 10 years, during which time the hype fades almost completely, between the breakthrough and the first clinical trial. Then there is another 10 years to complete the trial. This all means that if TODAY something amazing happened, the earliest it could be on the market is 20 years from now.

Then there is the issue of disease fragmentation. We have lousy cancer drugs that treat all cancers. We can make better ones, but inevitably they are more targeted to specific cancers. Like Herceptin only treats HER positive metastatic. So even if we make breakthroughs, we will need hundreds if not thousands of them to treat the various and unrelated forms of cancer and heart disease.

That may sound grim, but really I just accept that no one needs to live past 100. A few people do so with good health, but the vast majority of people would have failures of joints, eyes, organs. It would be a shit show.

virgil_squirt · 2 days

They don't server beer this good in hell.

dave723 · 2 days

Whoa now. I can assure you we are not "verge of radical life extension" for so many reasons. First is that, at the end of life, many chronic diseases manifest near simultaneously, meaning that if we did tackle heart disease then cancer would get us.

Second is that precious little progress has been made in tackling heart disease. It still will kill you eventually. Medical management is still as effective as it was, which was and is good, bit there is no revolution on the horizon. Just finished a postdoctoral fellowship in CV med.

Ninja edit: sorry about all the commas.

toru85 · 3 days

That said, I rarely wear the tux I own but buying one is one of the best financial decisions I've made. I paid as much for it as two rentals, max. I've worn it more times than I can count. There is some place for clothes that are infrequently worn.

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