http://blog.allencheng.com Learn Medicine with a Medical Student Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:12:09 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en While managing college groups in college, one of my most cumbersome tasks was sending all our new recruits personalized emails. I found that instead of a blanket mass-mail, personalizing the email to each user led to higher retention rates. This was also useful in publicizing events. The program that saved me was ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/07/a-nifty-email-sender/ The most iconic component of medical education may be dissection of the cadaver for anatomy. In short, an intact body preserved in formaldehyde is systematically opened to inspect organs, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, literally from head to toe. A top concern of the premedical student is contemplating his tolerance of ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/07/thoughts-on-anatomy-and-dissection/ Apparently the CW, famous for such teen dramas as Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, is ready to tackle medical education with a series called "HMS." If this is actually produced, I predict the show will be a new favorite amusement of HMS students poking at inaccuracies. This place looks nothing ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/06/tv-and-medicine-again/ This evening Neal Baer, producer of and writer for ER and Law and Order: SVU, lectured on the doctor's role in exposing medicine to the public. He envisioned his role as an agent for social change by dramatizing medical issues. He gave an example of a young female patient (in ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/06/tv-and-medicine/ Today's fact comes from a case presented in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The 39-year-old woman was being treated for melanoma, a skin cancer, but the disease showed steady spreading. Among other symptoms, her heart rate was 110 and blood pressure 82/64 mmHg (normally 60-70 and 120/80, respectively). This ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/05/medical-fact-of-the-day-heart-swinging/ We've been in school for just two months now, but the signs of fatigue are starting to show. In any of our nine classes each week, I can look around and see some students dozing off, their heads bobbing up and down rhythmically like a drinking bird. Some students stare ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2010/04/everyone-is-exhausted/ Smoking is probably the single largest preventable cause of deaths worldwide, increasing the chance of lung cancer, emphysema, atherosclerosis, and hypertension. But how can it be good for you? In several studies, patients who smoked or consumed caffeine daily were significantly less likely to have Parkinson's Disease. Furthermore, increasing the smoking ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2009/10/medical-fact-of-the-day-how-can-smoking-and-coffee-be-good-for-you/ About two and a half weeks after I first reported an illness, I've just about recovered. There is the last remnant of a sore throat and a dry cough, but it will probably disappear in a few days. It's been a painful and long illness, and I have two salient thoughts ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2009/10/reflections-on-being-sick/ I wore my white coat today to shadow a geneticist in clinic. This made me wonder - why do doctors even wear white coats? It is a recognizable symbol of the medical profession, but how did it start? [caption id="attachment_52" align="aligncenter" width="317" caption="WIthout any context, this man looks like a doctor. ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2009/10/medical-fact-of-the-day-why-white-coats/ I last reported on a sudden illness and its disappearance. Now later in the week, different symptoms have erupted and I now have an actual disease. I have a productive cough (coughing up phlegm), swollen lymph nodes, and a very sore throat without white exudates (pus, which would be a ... http://blog.allencheng.com/2009/10/i-am-fully-sick/