Originally posted 10 Jan 2005. An MD/PhD student at WashU wrote a post tonight about a dissection experience that was eerily similar to one I had as a first-year medical student. I wrote about mine, too, a long time ago. It makes me wonder whether everyone has this experience and is relieved afterward to have had it.

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Boy, I must say: I really, really like dissecting, and for the most part I’ve had no trouble getting accustomed to the odd environment of cutting open a dead person like there’s nothing to it, but today, for a brief moment, it was extremely difficult to focus on our task of dissecting the face. I don’t know why. I think it’s that we’re so emotionally reactive both to faces and to dead people, and the pairing of the two really hit me. Usually I find it easy to sort of block out the typical emotions that arise that would otherwise force me to ask myself, What the hell are you doing? You’re cutting someone open! It does require you to detach yourself from your surroundings and focus on the cutting itself and not necessarily consider the scope of what you’re cutting; that would get anybody into trouble.

So today, I had one of those moments, that which forced me to step back, take a breath, and go back in. I don’t know what it was; I just looked at the face not as a mouth and nose in the middle and two eyes and ears, but rather as a cohesive whole, and the weakness flowed. Then, I remembered that this cadaver, this person, has given himself as a gift to us as a learning tool, and I saw again the mouth, the nose, eyes and ears, and began working again on the facial muscles. And that was the end of it. But I have to tell you, it made me feel good that I had that moment. I do have an easy time detaching myself from the emotional side of dissection, and I was really starting to think that I’m a cold person. At least now I know I’m not entirely cold.

How awesome is this? I wish I were a chimp. Or, at least, had a chimp.

I’ve long had an interest in the admissions process, not just to medical school, but to any level of education. Part of this stems from an irrational obsession with the general institution of higher education, one I developed late in high school in part simply through applying to colleges and in part during a road trip I took with my dad to visit several reputed colleges of a certain reputed group of colleges on the east coast. I didn’t get into any of them, and I was temporarily heartbroken, but my preoccupation with their history and existence remained strong and expanded into a broader interest.

In general, I am fascinated by the application process—by the lengths to which applicants will go to gain admission; by what causes an applicant to become attracted to a school; by whether that attraction is sincere or merely feigned as fodder for one’s own individual attractiveness; by the rumors that arise from the frenzy of freakouts and breakdowns and success stories; by how the process changes and stregthens a person and teaches him or her about himself or herself; by the types of people one meets both as an applicant and as an evaluator; by the basis for which a student is accepted, whether on merit, or on personal ties, or on goodness-of-fit or demonstration of potential or on gut feeling or on some combination of these or something else altogether.

It is because of this interest and because of the difficulties I personally had during my own applications to college and to medical school that I’ve started the podcast, edited personal statements, and participated in interviews for medical school as much as possible. The more you know about a school, about how you’d fit in at that school, and about what not to do while applying, the better off you’ll be as an applicant, and I like the fact that I can contribute to that. I also like that idea that I can take part in shaping the next generation of students that come to my medical school and improve the student body. This is especially true for me since I won’t be returning to medical school for a few years, and some of those I interview now will inevitably end up being my classmates and colleagues. I’d be doing myself a disservice by not putting any effort into their choosing whatsoever.

So, it is with enthusiasm that I direct you to this UCSF MD/PhD student, who, even as a second-year student, is able to serve on the admissions committee there (at Pritzker, only fourth-years are allowed to do this, while pretty much anyone can conduct interviews). She also has some good advice for applying; considering where she ended up, I’d trust her.

This has been making the rounds very recently, but it’s too amazing to not also post here, such as. Even Mario Lopez (and everyone like such as and), not the most intelligent person I’ve ever heard speak in public, seems to be cracking up inside, such as.

Such as, and.

Episode 2 of the Pritzker Podcast is now available. To listen, subscribe in iTunes, go to its home page, or go here. Pick your poison.

Check out the brand-spankin’-new Cancer Research Blog Carnival over at the Bayblab. It’s pretty hot. I don’t know about you, but my life is so much better now.

At long last, the podcast is up and running. Subscribe here. I’m still figuring out a way to post the files here in case you’re an alien and don’t use iTunes…stay tuned.

UPDATE: Awesome. I just designed the podcast site and populated it with the first two episodes. Check it out here or using the link on the right. The second episode won’t be available on iTunes until Monday, but you’re special.

Actual conversation I had with a Starbucks tablemate tonight:

ACT I
Me, arriving: Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?
Guy across the table: No, go ahead.
Business-Interested, Though Clueless, Hellcat, in a feisty manner: ….? What is this, high school? Are you like asking to sit at the cafeteria table?
Me: No. [Courtesy chuckle.] You never know in a place like this. Sometimes people go to the bathroom and take everything they own with them.
BITCH: No they do not!
Me: …I know.

INTERMISSION
I unload my stuff and go to get a drink.

ACT II
BITCH, as I sit down, as though she were waiting to ask for the past several minutes: Are you in college?
Me: No, I’m in grad school.
BITCH: Oh… For what?
Me: Cancer biology.
BITCH: Cancer what?!?
Me, unable to discern whether she is deaf, incredulous of the existence of the field of biology, or both: Cancer BIOLOGY.
BITCH: Oh… What is point of that? Why wouldn’t you go to med school or something?
Me: I’m also in med school.
BITCH, noticeably dispirited by my unwavering disposition in the face of her purposeful rudeness: I don’t believe in such academic pursuits.
Me: How so?
BITCH: I just think it’s a waste of time. Yeah, medical school is fine, but grad school…what could you possibly do with that?
Me: Research?
BITCH: Yeah, but it’s, like, pointless. Grad school is pointless. What good does research ever do?
Me: Sometimes, you can learn new things.

INTERMISSION
I mull over my options at this point with my headphones in one hand and her on the other.

ACT III
Me, noticing her perusal of the whole of Facebook since my arrival: Are you in college?
BITCH: PFFFFFT. Yeah, I’m a sophomore in college.
Me, in an honest, yet increasingly indifferent, manner: Are you being serious?
BITCH: Noooo! Do I look like I’m in college?
Me: Yes.
BITCH: No.
Me: …
BITCH: I have a job. I have an MBA.
Me: Okay.
BITCH: I mean, I guess that’s grad school too, but it’s different. An MBA is just more worth it. You do stuff.
Me: Okay.

THE AYND

I should’ve gone with the headphones. Always go with the headphones.

I’m a “ Respectful Designer,” according to these people. Hover over the colored boxes to see the components.

You must read this paper. It puts the issue of smoking reduction and prevention into frightening perspective, and it does so in no uncertain terms.

Here’s the abstract, in case you aren’t allowed access to its content:

Nicotine, at the dosage levels smokers seek, is a relatively innocuous drug commonly delivered by a highly harmful device, cigarette smoke. An intensifying pandemic of disease caused or exacerbated by smoking demands more effective policy responses that the current one: demanding that nicotine users abstain. A pragmatic response to the smoking problem is blocked by moralistic campaigns masquerading as public health, by divisions within the community of opponents to present policy, and by the public-health professions antipathy to any tobacco-control endeavours other than smoking cessation. Yet, numerous alternative systems for nicotine delivery exist, many of them far safer than smoking. A pragmatic, public-health approach to tobacco control would recognize a continuum of risk and encourage nicotine users to move themselves down the risk spectrum by choosing safer alternatives to smoking—without demanding abstinence.”