Researchers at HMS have discovered an important mechanism by which cancer cells can grow so quickly (via /.). They’re hoping to use this information clinically to significantly reduce the growth rate of cancer cells, making them much easier to manage. Cool.
My friend Kiyoshi made a site called AngryJournalist as a place for journalists to rant anonymously where others could read it. Someone has apparently ported this for physicians in training: AngryResident. It wasn’t by me, but no doubt only because I’ve got another 3 years before I get to worry about ranting 
I read a very interesting article today, linked from an article on ifacethoughts (a blog I read). The article itself is about undergraduate Computer Science majors, but I felt like the premise goes far beyond that specific example. In reality it speaks to the terms of higher education in general, and I’m going to try to take it to heart in my own education.
See, I seldom think about the professional nature of the physician anymore. The way they throw facts at you in Anatomy and Physiology (not to mention Pharmacology and the rest to come), it seems like anyone with half a brain and a whole lot of hard work can memorize them all and become a successful physician. After all, there are government recommendations and guidelines for treating almost everything. While this may be true, I’m reminded of something I heard here at Rush (although I can’t remember where) that was reflected in that article. In it, Braithwaite probes at the nature of the undergrad CS major, who claims that more class time should be devoted to teaching more computer languages and detail in programming. If most of their students simply go to work for businesses who want them to be programmers who can produce solutions for them, why isn’t more time spent on teaching the ins and outs of various programming languages?
You are describing a vocational job to me. The rote application of practical principles is nothing more and nothing less. How is what you’re describing any different than a job as an accounts receivable clerk or a dental technician? Or a land surveyor? Or a architectural draftsperson?
He goes on to point out that there’s nothing wrong with vocational work or being a technician as long as you’re not lying to yourself about it. His greater point is to emphasize that it is not incredibly difficult to earn a degree, even with high marks, while understanding very little about the field.
The reality is that your degree is only a pacifier, a way to make you feel good about yourself. The industry is selling you the illusion of respect. I’m telling you this because the sooner you figure out the game, the sooner you can start playing instead of being played. If you really want to be more than a clerk, you can pay more attention to what is to be done and how much freedom you have to do it and less attention to whether there is a title or a degree involved.
It’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of details presented in class every day and forget about the bigger picture. But the point is that it’s not enough to just know the facts. If you do, then you are just a form of “clerk”. You need to understand the processes, why things are done (and even taught) the way they are, and why the field is going where it’s going. Otherwise you’ll not be in charge of your professional career and where it’s leading you. This is one of the main goals of education, although it’s often lost somewhere along the way.
On a sort of tangential note, this is an aspect of being a full-time practicing physician that worries me. In a linked article to the one above, he speaks about the role of academics in progressing the field, citing that most of their advances come from academia. I worry about becoming a person who only practices a craft as opposed to being a developer.
Hi. I know most people think that doctors make a lot of money and therefore don’t need to worry about the cost of their education. However, in reality I (like most med students) am likely going to graduate over $200,000 in debt. Your reaction may be “yeah but you’ll be making the big bucks then, and you can pay it all back”. While it may be true that I’ll be making a decent living at some point, I will not be doing so when I graduate from medical school. In fact I will be making about $40,000/year for the next 3-5 years of my life in residency, which is for an 80 hour work week and therefore is actually closer to minimum wage (not bad for someone with a professional degree). Previously, I (like most medical students) was eligible to claim economic hardship for the first 3 years and have my $200,000 bill wait for me until I could afford to pay it and the government would pay any interest accruing. Approximately 67% of medical residents qualified for economic hardship. This past September, Congress and the President passed a bill that disqualifies almost all medical residents from being able to claim economic hardship during this period. This means that medical residents will be left with a choice. Foot a $2,000+ bill every month or go into forbearance. When in forbearance, we will accrue interest on our entire $200,000+ loan for the entire 3-5 years while in residency. This is a lot of money! In a country that needs more doctors, our government should not be making someone’s choice to go into medicine more difficult with a hefty financial burden.
If you’d like to read more about this issue, the AMA has written up a good outline of the events. If you’d like to contact your Congress-people (like I did) and let them know you’re outraged they would do such a thing to the country’s future physicians, the AMA made an easy form to do it for you. Spread the word if you care to.
Finally, someone proved it. Now will all these people pipe down? Heh, probably not.
In my break from studying, I found myself wandering through Panda Bear‘s archives. I came across this post from June, which I found to be particularly insightful. And another.
Apparently Pieter wasn’t lying to me when he said my undergraduate thesis was on a really important topic. In yesterday’s Tribune, they dug up an apparently old piece of news that I hadn’t heard. The folks at UIUC‘s new IGB received a $7 million grant from the NIH back in April. For what? Apparently to use the technique Pieter and I (mainly Pieter, mind you) helped design for understanding and developing antibiotics.
“The genetic screening method they are using has been available to the scientific community for about three years. Metcalf considers it a powerful aid in his search because it replaces a hit-or-miss screening system in which scientists had to grow the bacteria under a variety of conditions to find out what antibiotics they could produce.”
-Chicago Tribune
Of course, this is only getting covered in the Tribune now (7 months after the grant was awarded) because of all the hype about MRSA in the high schools. Considering we specifically designed our method to promote development of new antibiotics that could kill MRSA (and do many other things), it’s no wonder someone decided it might be important around now. I just hope in a few years we hear that their work (and our technique) has paid off and that they’ve got a prospective drug candidate or two. For further reading, see my undergrad thesis below.
One problem I have with the Tribune newspaper article is that it didn’t mention the other 4 researchers. Now Prof. Metcalf may be the lead investigator, but let’s face it, mass spec is the backbone of the technique. A hat-tip to Neil or the Kelleher Group would have been nice, guys. But I guess the public really doesn’t care about the “how”, they just want to know that someone’s on the case. Well folks, the scientists are on it.