The bit right after that talks about how that was his MO for assaulting gay men and he kept a “profanity-laced journal” about his actions.

In b4

You do not have a good understanding of menstruation and gynecology if you think that’s always the case. There are so many variations of irregular menstruation that trying to exclude data based on irregularities would be very difficult or get rid of a lot of legitimate irregular data.

Irregular menstrual cycles are very common and happen for a lot of different reasons. Also, there are different kinds of “regular” periods. Someone could be said to have regular periods even if they happen on shorter or longer cycles than the typical 28-30 days provided that it’s a consistent pattern without significant deviation for that person.

Write it down on paper or put it in a word document or excel spreadsheet (or FOSS equivalent if you don’t have Office 365).

From a medical perspective, a handwritten journal with dates and notes about the amount/consistency of the flow as well as associated symptoms would be the most useful. Having irregular periods that last for 3 days with very heavy bleeding would have a very different diagnostic approach than irregular periods that last 3 to 5 days with normal bleeding and horrible cramps.

This has already started happening and the result is that there are growing swaths of red states where there is little to no access to OB/Gyn care. Women in places like Idaho are on waiting lists for OB/Gyns so long that their first prenatal appointment can be as late as 20 weeks into the pregnancy. The waiting list problem doesn’t even account for the fact that women are having to drive as much as 200 miles to get to appointments.

The article did say that he is currently suspended without pay, so at least they’ve got that bit straight in this case.

I was very grateful that none of the cadavers we had at my medical school were John/Jane Does, and that we have a memorial service for the cadavers every year and invite the families to express gratitude.

I worked as a scribe and as an ER tech in a Level 1 peds hospital. I’m not even done with med school and I’ve already punched that card more times than I care to remember.

I have gotten pretty good at weaseling my way into in-groups despite being a queer socialist with strong opinions about human rights, unions, and civil rights. It took a lot of trial and error though.

I explained the concept of there being the two genders of “cis-male” and “political” to one of my professors at a religious university and he was actually interested to hear me out on it because he had never thought of it in that paradigm. I’m absolutely not saying that everyone can be convinced, but some people can be nudged in the right direction if you have a good rapport with them.

I’ve played Judo, and I’m a licensed EMT, and I’ve worked in ERs, and I’m a third year medical student. I am quite confident in telling you that you are incorrect. Modern safety standards make it so that the seatbelt locks in a crash and limits your longitudinal inertia. Also, many dummies (and actual humans I have cared for) have “hit their head wrong” on the headrest due to their height, posture, or position, and they don’t break their necks. Did their scalenes, paraspinal muscles, and sternocleidomastoids hurt like hell? Absolutely. But they didn’t have broken necks.

Your body can compensate for a lot, but it was the introduction of headrests in cars that has been one of the biggest contributors to the drastic reduction in fatalities. The point of the headrest is the same as the seatbelt: to limit the range of motion your body goes through in a crash. Seatbelt signs and headrest concussions are real things that can cause some pretty significant problems, but those problems are easier to fix when the patient isn’t dead or quadriplegic.

Whiplash is from your head moving more than your neck can compensate for. The headrests are designed to prevent excessive backwards movement of your head to help your neck not get completely over-extended. Heads are actually quite heavy and there are a lot of very important things inside the neck that you don’t want getting fucked up be getting jerked around too much. The muscles in your neck can only do so much in a high-velocity situation like a crash.

You have to be very careful about “filtering” as well. It becomes far too easy to write off a legitimate concern if it has to pass muster with your “filter” before you consider it. The HPI and subjective portions of a note are explicitly for the things the patient (or their caretaker) tells you. It is subjective. Then you do your objective examination and testing, then you make an assessment, and if you can justify that assessment with the testing and history, then you can make a plan. SOAP notes go in that order for a reason.

That doesn’t mean you ignore them. You listen to what they’re saying, maybe take it with a grain of salt, and actually get a good history and physical.

Nah. Amy Klobuchar. I’m a Minnesotan.

When I have more time during my winter break, I’m going to mail a handwritten letter with some articles printed out, and follow up with a phone call. I’ll read the damn article to her if I have to.

Stories like this make me very glad that I got my pediatric experience in a good children’s hospital before starting medical school. The attending physicians made sure to drill it into everyone’s heads that if the parent is expressing concern about a change in condition or “something just not being right”, you report that to the patient’s physician and nurse ASAP. Everyone from the physicians down to the admin folks were empowered to challenge decisions they thought weren’t in the patient’s best interest.

Hell, I even had a case where, as the ER tech, I challenged a physician on her diagnosis of a child and refused to let her discharge the kiddo without looking at him again. The mom told me something was wrong, and even with just an EMT license, I was able to see something was subtly wrong as well. It turns out the mom and I were right and the physician changed her diagnosis and admitted him to the hospital for treatment instead of discharging him home to follow up in clinic in a couple days.

I’m voting Democrat to preserve some semblance of democracy in this country, but I have to say I’m quite disappointed in my congress critters. My senator in particular. I’ve emailed her frequently, including links to articles detailing the crimes against humanity committed by the IDF, and all I get is a form letter response about how “Israel’s right to defend itself is so important” and “October 7th was terrible” and maybe a line about how horrible it is that Palestinians are suffering written in a way that either only blames Hamas or uses the most passive voice I have ever seen in writing.

Generative AI like ChatGPT is absolutely useless for anything besides maybe making summaries. Humans use language as a default method of communication, and if you are trying to produce academic work, the onus is on you to learn how to use language effectively. These heaps of algorithms and marketing exclusively hallucinate and plagiarize, both of which are absolutely unacceptable in academia (and should be unacceptable in society at large, in my opinion.)