P=MD, the Most Glorious Equation

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demayette said:
I am not too surprised... Maybe I am at the wrong med school... This experience is very eye opening... I have seen people become VERY depressed and are on psychotropic meds because they overextended themselves... I understand someone's career is very important, but it is not more important than your wellbeing...

At least at my school they understand this problem exist... so they kind of make us see the school psychologist at least every year...
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or they just can't put on their big boy pants and deal with adversity. 1/4 of middle age women are on anti-depressants. do I honestly think that 1/4 of middle age women have a physiological problem mentally that needs medicated? Hell no, at that point they should start reconsidering what they call normal physiology.
 
PL198 said:
or they just can't put on their big boy pants and deal with adversity. 1/4 of middle age women are on anti-depressants. do I honestly think that 1/4 of middle age women have a physiological problem mentally that needs medicated? Hell no, at that point they should start reconsidering what they call normal physiology.
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Now you're just being a jerk, Mr. 21 year old.
 
PL198 said:
or they just can't put on their big boy pants and deal with adversity. 1/4 of middle age women are on anti-depressants. do I honestly think that 1/4 of middle age women have a physiological problem mentally that needs medicated? Hell no, at that point they should start reconsidering what they call normal physiology.
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smh. just smh.
 
DermViser said:
Now you're just being a jerk, Mr. 21 year old.
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No, it's just funny to me that the first line any time someone has a problem in medical school is a counselor and drugs. What about picking yourself up and getting back in the game? If someone is working hard and trying to improve their situation and they can't seem to get it done, totally fine, go see someone, talk about it, etc, that's great. However huge majorities of people that have problems aren't even doing that. It's like I see people that study 4 hours a day with facebook on half their screen and they cry about getting bad grades. Well, wtf did you think would happen?

[not to derm specifically] Also I'd love for people to actually make a counter-argument instead of brushing off my thought. Do you believe that amount of middle aged women have an actual medical problem?
 
Meh, our population is definitely over-medicated across the board. There is absolutely too much of a reliance on medication to fix problems, especially in regards to things like diabetes management and other reversible chronic health issues. I don't feel comfortable making claims about anything psych-related because I don't know enough about it.
 
PL198 said:
No, it's just funny to me that the first line any time someone has a problem in medical school is a counselor and drugs. What about picking yourself up and getting back in the game? If someone is working hard and trying to improve their situation and they can't seem to get it done, totally fine, go see someone, talk about it, etc, that's great. However huge majorities of people that have problems aren't even doing that. It's like I see people that study 4 hours a day with facebook on half their screen and they cry about getting bad grades. Well, wtf did you think would happen?

[not to derm specifically] Also I'd love for people to actually make a counter-argument instead of brushing off my thought. Do you believe that amount of middle aged women have an actual medical problem?
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One's functionality is based on one's ability to cope. Sometimes it's situational and sometimes it's an inherent problem. Ask any psychiatrist if he thinks his patients should just be able to shake it off.
 
sinombre said:
Meh, our population is definitely over-medicated across the board. There is absolutely too much of a reliance on medication to fix problems, especially in regards to things like diabetes management and other reversible chronic health issues. I don't feel comfortable making claims about anything psych-related because I don't know enough about it.
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Over-medicated, maybe, depending on how you actually define it. I've also seen SSRIs literally save people's lives so I would disagree with you on that. The journey to get into medical school and medical school itself can definitely bring up previously resolved problems, or cause problems themselves.
 
DermViser said:
One's functionality is based on one's ability to cope. Sometimes it's situational and sometimes it's an inherent problem. Ask any psychiatrist if he thinks his patients should just be able to shake it off.
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There's different levels. I'm not saying no one should go to a psychiatrist, or that everyone can fix their own problems. However the problems the average medical student goes through, those aren't the ones that they all need to go talk to someone and get on drugs. Yes there's probably a few that have something going on, but it seems like the first time anyone does poorly, the default response is " go to someone and get some drugs."
 
PL198 said:
No, it's just funny to me that the first line any time someone has a problem in medical school is a counselor and drugs. What about picking yourself up and getting back in the game? If someone is working hard and trying to improve their situation and they can't seem to get it done, totally fine, go see someone, talk about it, etc, that's great. However huge majorities of people that have problems aren't even doing that. It's like I see people that study 4 hours a day with facebook on half their screen and they cry about getting bad grades. Well, wtf did you think would happen?

[not to derm specifically] Also I'd love for people to actually make a counter-argument instead of brushing off my thought. Do you believe that amount of middle aged women have an actual medical problem?
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There are 3 possibilities, the way I see it.

1) There are that many middle-aged women with a mental health disorder, on some level.
2) Psychiatrists over-prescribe to women when compared to men.
3) Mental health problems are for more prevalent than you actually think and go un-diagnosed more often in men than in women.

None of which lead to the conclusion that one can simply get over a mental health disorder or, in general, all types of adversity the same way one might get over a failed relationship or a physical injury.
 
PL198 said:
There's different levels. I'm not saying no one should go to a psychiatrist, or that everyone can fix their own problems. However the problems the average medical student goes through, those aren't the ones that they all need to go talk to someone and get on drugs. Yes there's probably a few that have something going on, but it seems like the first time anyone does poorly, the default response is " go to someone and get some drugs."
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No that's your medical school's response. The common med student response is to ignore it believing they can solve the problem - which is why it's a known fact that med students don't use support services early on.
 
Lucca said:
There are 3 possibilities, the way I see it.

1) There are that many middle-aged women with a mental health disorder, on some level.
2) Psychiatrists over-prescribe to women when compared to men.
3) Mental health problems are for more prevalent than you actually think and go un-diagnosed more often in men than in women.

None of which lead to the conclusion that one can simply get over a mental health disorder or, in general, all types of adversity the same way one might get over a failed relationship or a physical injury.
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Except that at some point in prevalence, what you think is an illness becomes normal. If 80 percent of 40 yr old women need anti-depressants at some point, then I'd just say we have a false understanding of baseline and the 20 % are the ones with an illness. The whole " mental health problems are more prevalent than you think," is psych's go to for this kind of challenges. That is what's a joke about psych, in that you can call anything you want mental illness and drug people for it. Why do mental health prevalences continue to increase? Probably because they make the guidelines looser and more abstract every year. Per the NIH, 20 % of adults have some mental illness that warrants treatment. If that's not a laughingstock, I have no idea what is.

Nothing you wrote defies the fact that some of them you can get around on your own. Someone has ADHD, refuses to take treatment for it, simply works harder and gets good grades. Sounds like they worked through it to me.
 
How the hell did we get from derm to psych???!!!

Anyways. Psych is real. The diseases are real for the most part. Yes, some people don't need meds for their "health issues". But step in a psych ward and tell me there aren't people with problems when you see a patient dragging his ass across the floor ****ting everywhere
 
Kaustikos said:
How the hell did we get from derm to psych???!!!

Anyways. Psych is real. The diseases are real for the most part. Yes, some people don't need meds for their "health issues". But step in a psych ward and tell me there aren't people with problems when you see a patient dragging his ass across the floor ****ting everywhere
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Dermviser doesn't like EM. My victim is psych. Completely agree there are patients with truly terrible mental illnesses that need treatment. However we're so quick to medicate people for the lower stuff that it's insane. 6 yr old can't focus in school? Better give him some vyvanse. Nevermind the fact that he sleeps 6 hours a night and plays video games 6 hours a day outside of school.
 
PL198 said:
Except that at some point in prevalence, what you think is an illness becomes normal. If 80 percent of 40 yr old women need anti-depressants at some point, then I'd just say we have a false understanding of baseline. The whole " mental health problems are more prevalent than you think," is psych's go to for this kind of challenges. That is what's a joke about psych, in that you can call anything you want mental illness and drug people for it. Why do mental health prevalences continue to increase? Probably because they make the guidelines looser and more abstract every year. Per the NIH, 20 % of adults have some mental illness that warrants treatment. If that's not a laughingstock, I have no idea what is.
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We are living in an era of caution. The brain is not fully understood and I feel the brain will soon have its day in the sun the same way the heart did in the 80s/90s. You would be right that we would need to adjust our baseline, however, as it stands the medication rate is 25% and not 80%. I wouldn't be willing to make the argument that we do in fact over-medicate because I am not an academic nor a psychiatrist, but my intuition from the media and what I've seen would tell me we do. However, the brain is an organ and disease emerges in it the same way it does in any other organ. Why should the brain somehow be more resistant to disease than, say, our heart? Is it not too subject to the consequences of lifestyle choices, diet, genetics, etc. ? We understand mental illnesses far better today than we did a couple of decades ago and the disease prevalence has increased because we know what is a disease and what is something else. I would say that 20% number is probably very accurate (if not generous).

Think of this way:

Imagine that you lived (as I do) in an extremely fit city in a very obese state. The NIH tells me that more than 30% of my state's population is obese. I would look around my city and laugh and say, "Oh please, 30%??? Look around!"

Now imagine instead of a city it is your mind, an even more private thing than a city and a smaller sample set to boot. Would you look at your own mind and say, I'm perfectly fine - why isn't everyone else?
 
PL198 said:
Dermviser doesn't like EM. My victim is psych. Completely agree there are patients with truly terrible mental illnesses that need treatment. However we're so quick to medicate people for the lower stuff that it's insane. 6 yr old can't focus in school? Better give him some vyvanse. Nevermind the fact that he sleeps 6 hours a night and plays video games 6 hours a day outside of school.
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Yes, bc EM can be done by other specialties together, which for decades on end was just dandy. Psych can not be done by other specialties.
 
DermViser said:
Yes, bc EM can be done by other specialties together, which for decades on end was just dandy. Psych can not be done by other specialties.
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Yes,
We need a consult from vascular for a 3cm AAA for someone asymptotic. But he has hematuria.

Does he have a pmh? Meds?

We don't know.

Whatd the urinalysis show?

We didn't do that yet.


.......
 
PL198 said:
or they just can't put on their big boy pants and deal with adversity. 1/4 of middle age women are on anti-depressants. do I honestly think that 1/4 of middle age women have a physiological problem mentally that needs medicated? Hell no, at that point they should start reconsidering what they call normal physiology.
Click to expand...
Are you serious? Wtf....
 
Lucca said:
We are living in an era of caution. The brain is not fully understood and I feel the brain will soon have its day in the sun the same way the heart did in the 80s/90s. You would be right that we would need to adjust our baseline, however, as it stands the medication rate is 25% and not 80%. I wouldn't be willing to make the argument that we do in fact over-medicate because I am not an academic nor a psychiatrist, but my intuition from the media and what I've seen would tell me we do. However, the brain is an organ and disease emerges in it the same way it does in any other organ. Why should the brain somehow be more resistant to disease than, say, our heart? Is it not too subject to the consequences of lifestyle choices, diet, genetics, etc. ? We understand mental illnesses far better today than we did a couple of decades ago and the disease prevalence has increased because we know what is a disease and what is something else. I would say that 20% number is probably very accurate (if not generous).

Think of this way:

Imagine that you lived (as I do) in an extremely fit city in a very obese state. The NIH tells me that more than 30% of my state's population is obese. I would look around my city and laugh and say, "Oh please, 30%??? Look around!"

Now imagine instead of a city it is your mind, an even more private thing than a city and a smaller sample set to boot. Would you look at your own mind and say, I'm perfectly fine - why isn't everyone else?
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wut. the heart gets problems due to lifestyle choices for the most part since it's basically just a pump that gets more and more resistance as people get more and more fat/stressed/more negative health risk factors
It's not like the brain is struggling to propagate electrical signal. I agree the brain isn't understood but I don't see the possibility for the same prevalence of disease seen in the heart.

Honestly I think mental illness is something very similar to allergies. Hygiene hypothesis. People have less and less serious stress today and aren't required to deal with these concepts naturally nearly as much as their predecessors. Due to this, their ability to tolerate these completely natural events decreases and they think they need treated.
 
touchpause13 said:
Are you serious? Wtf....
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Address my point. I played your game all last night while you tried to dodge, so play mine. Show me that 1/4 of middle aged women have a mental physiological disease and need medicated.
 
PL198 said:
Address my point. I played your game all last night while you tried to dodge, so play mine. Show me that 1/4 of middle aged women have a mental physiological disease and need medicated.
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Honestly Lucca and DermViser already said everything I would have. I don't have anything else to add besides that I think you are wrong/naive.
 
lol i just googled hygiene hypothesis and mental illness and that actually has a significant following that has recently developed. WIN
 
Kaustikos said:
Yes,
We need a consult from vascular for a 3cm AAA for someone asymptotic. But he has hematuria.

Does he have a pmh? Meds?

We don't know.

Whatd the urinalysis show?

We didn't do that yet.


.......
Click to expand...
Apparently picking up the phone to call the consult justifies a whole specialty in and of itself.
 
PL198 said:
lol i just googled hygiene hypothesis and mental illness and that actually has a significant following that has recently developed. WIN
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What is your experience with mental illness?
 
PL198 said:
don't dodge. I play your game, address what I said. don't go on a tangent. hygiene.
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I am addressing your point. I'm trying to identify what you mean when you are talking about mental illness because I think you have some misconceptions about what types of things trigger a major depressive episode so I'm trying to see what your base of knowledge is
 
PL198 said:
don't dodge. I play your game, address what I said. don't go on a tangent. hygiene.
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How is what she said a tangent? You haven't even rotated on Psychiatry and you think it's bc people aren't wearing their big boy pants? Maybe you should tell your little theory to Dr. Pamela Wible, as she's on SDN now.
 
touchpause13 said:
I am addressing your point. I'm trying to identify what you mean when you are talking about mental illness because I think you have some misconceptions about what types of things trigger a major depressive episode so I'm trying to see what your base of knowledge is
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Likely BRS Behavioral Science.
 
O Grady said:
Have you ever disclosed your age on here DV? Based on all your "you kids" posts I would guess late 40s 😀
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No, I just point out his age, bc his views will change quite rapidly esp. once he gets to the age that most people will be when they graduate from med school (26), he'll be 23.
His viewpoints are average for guys his age.
 
DermViser said:
No, I just point out his age, bc his views will change quite rapidly esp. once he gets to the age that most people will be when they graduate from med school (26), he'll be 23.
His viewpoints are average for guys his age.
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I totally agree. My comment was actually less about him, and more about your commendable preservation of anonymity on here.
 
DermViser said:
No, I just point out his age, bc his views will change quite rapidly esp. once he gets to the age that most people will be when they graduate from med school (26), he'll be 23.
His viewpoints are average for guys his age.
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Forgive me, I forget that not everyone was raised in the same manner I was. I have a hard time realizing that some people grew up without a focus on mental health. I didn't even realize that there was a stigma against depression/suicide until I was in college.
 
sinombre said:
To be fair, aren't you an ms1? More than likely a decent number of people in your class already know a good amount of the information you've covered (some people have strong biochem backgrounds, some people already have doctorates, etc.), which could significantly affect what you're observing. Give it time, and you'll see that hours studying and work put in absolutely correlates with success. It's obviously not a perfect correlation, but it's a pretty strong one. People are also changing and adapting their study habits at the beginning of ms1... I know I didn't really have a solid study routine down for at least a few months after starting.

Another important point: you probably have no idea how much other people in your class study.



This will also change as you get more and more used to your curriculum.
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Yes I am an MS1 about a month and a half into school. I see what you mean and I hope it's true. I've personally been changing my study methods around. Still deciding if class time is worth it more or if just podcasting from home/library is better.

GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
This sounds like the argument fat people make when they're too lazy to try to lose weight.

Goddamn fit people and their genetics!
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Seriously, and poor people complaining about not having money when they have ipads and iphones. Everyone can work hard to get just as far in life because we are all born equal right?

PL198 said:
It's not that big of a gap. I've never seen someone that consistently gets honors that doesn't work their tail off. I have no idea how you'd know if someone is gifted or not, as I don't sit there and quiz my classmates after lectures what they remember. The only common denominator that exists among the people that honor classes from my experience is that they study extremely well. No distractions. I'd say the amount of distractions typically encountered during studying is going to have the strongest correlation to exam scores of anything you could measure.
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I guess you can say I "quiz" people. I study at the library with other medical students being in the area and constantly ask questions and some people tend to be able to spit back EVERYTHING so accurately and with so much detail from a lecture we JUST had. It's incredible. Maybe I am not used to being surrounded by people with insanely good memories, but I am overly impressed with some of my classmates with near-perfect recall capabilities.
 
touchpause13 said:
Forgive me, I forget that not everyone was raised in the same manner I was. I have a hard time realizing that some people grew up without a focus on mental health. I didn't even realize that there was a stigma against depression/suicide until I was in college.
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LOL. No, I'm just pointing out his age, bc it puts his comments and views in a much better context. Not as a slander against him. We all have different life experiences. College is ripe time for many issues to come up, and if not there then in medical school.

I'm sure there are many people who do believe that anxiety/depression are people not putting their big boy pants on (Surgeons, probably). With the recent suicides of Robin Williams, etc. I think people are seeing that these are very serious issues.
 
O Grady said:
I totally agree. My comment was actually less about him, and more about your commendable preservation of anonymity on here.
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It's true. Anyone who has been on SDN for a non-zero amount of time has read @DermViser's posts and knows who he is and what he thinks but we know very little about him. All we know is that out there somewhere there is a derm resident who likes kids, dislikes the ACA and enjoys the internet. It could actually be anyone. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to guess where I live and even where I go to school (although good luck finding me 😉 ).
 
Lucca said:
It's true. Anyone who has been on SDN for a non-zero amount of time has read @DermViser's posts and knows who he is and what he thinks but we know very little about him. All we know is that out there somewhere there is a derm resident who likes kids, dislikes the ACA and enjoys the internet. It could actually be anyone. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to guess where I live and even where I go to school (although good luck finding me 😉 ).
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I didn't know we were dating.
 
Lucca said:
It's true. Anyone who has been on SDN for a non-zero amount of time has read @DermViser's posts and knows who he is and what he thinks but we know very little about him. All we know is that out there somewhere there is a derm resident who likes kids, dislikes the ACA and enjoys the internet. It could actually be anyone. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to guess where I live and even where I go to school (although good luck finding me 😉 ).
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Same. Maybe I'm just not paranoid enough lol, but I don't really think I say anything stupid enough to warrant needing anonymity. I've even posted pictures in the lounge.

Oh well, different strokes I guess.
 
O Grady said:
Same. Maybe I'm just not paranoid enough lol, but I don't really think I say anything stupid enough to warrant needing anonymity. I've even posted pictures in the lounge.

Oh well, different strokes I guess.
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I feel like anyone at our school who goes on here could figure out who I am in about 2 seconds
 
O Grady said:
Same. Maybe I'm just not paranoid enough lol, but I don't really think I say anything stupid enough to warrant needing anonymity. I've even posted pictures in the lounge.

Oh well, different strokes I guess.
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Once you apply to the match and onwards, you'll see why. Residency programs are very much known to peruse the SDN forums even private messaging certain people not to bad mouth their program, even if it's the truth --> See the Cleveland Clinic IM thread.
 
DermViser said:
Once you apply to the match and onwards, you'll see why. Residency programs are very much known to peruse the SDN forums even private messaging certain people not to bad mouth their program, even if it's the truth --> See the Cleveland Clinic IM thread.
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Have you bad mouthed your program?
 
O Grady said:
Same. Maybe I'm just not paranoid enough lol, but I don't really think I say anything stupid enough to warrant needing anonymity. I've even posted pictures in the lounge.

Oh well, different strokes I guess.
Click to expand...

The smaller your (professional) world gets, the more you care.

When I was a premed I didn't care at all. Had one of those mdapps profiles linked, disclosed what schools I was getting interviews at and where I ended up choosing.

After a several year break from the site I decided to start contributing again. I did it with an anonymous handle and no revealing information.

I wouldn't want to be outed at my residency. I don't really even want people to know my med school.

It's not that I am embarrassed of what I say here. It's just that in a small professional community with lots of scrutiny, I have little to gain and lots to lose by being public.

When it comes fellowship application time I will probably disappear again for a while.
 
southernIM said:
The smaller your (professional) world gets, the more you care.

When I was a premed I didn't care at all. Had one of those mdapps profiles linked, disclosed what schools I was getting interviews at and where I ended up choosing.

After a several year break from the site I decided to start contributing again. I did it with an anonymous handle and no revealing information.

I wouldn't want to be outed at my residency. I don't really even want people to know my med school.

It's not that I am embarrassed of what I say here. It's just that in a small professional community with lots of scrutiny, I have little to gain and lots to lose by being public.

When it comes fellowship application time I will probably disappear again for a while.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. I'm not criticizing anyone else for their actions, it makes sense.
 
O Grady said:
Have you bad mouthed your program?
Click to expand...
Nope. I'm happy. There are so few Derm programs as it is so even if there were bad programs no one is going to come out and say it bc there are so few residents in the program - some having 1-2 per PGY year.

The Cleveland Clinic thread was someone posing as a resident saying how great it was and that apparently people at Case were coming to their program (a program known for having a lot of IMGs) when actually there was no one at Case even on their roster. Someone else who was an actual resident called them out on it which is when **** started hitting the fan, and some program coordinator, etc. effectively silenced him.
 
southernIM said:
The smaller your (professional) world gets, the more you care.

When I was a premed I didn't care at all. Had one of those mdapps profiles linked, disclosed what schools I was getting interviews at and where I ended up choosing.

After a several year break from the site I decided to start contributing again. I did it with an anonymous handle and no revealing information.

I wouldn't want to be outed at my residency. I don't really even want people to know my med school.

It's not that I am embarrassed of what I say here. It's just that in a small professional community with lots of scrutiny, I have little to gain and lots to lose by being public.

When it comes fellowship application time I will probably disappear again for a while.
Click to expand...

Interesting... did you pick your handle to be intentionally misleading?
 
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