Random non-pathology and only peripherally related to pathology thread

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yaah said:
I think part of this answer can be gotten at by considering our friends in nature. As my first pathology mentor told me, one of the fascinating organisms in nature is the tardigrade (slow walker) which were named by Spallanzani (? spelling) in the 1700s. These creatures are microscopic, and often inhabit extreme environments (usually cold, I think). They are capable of "cryptobiosis" which means they can stop (or dramatically cease) their own metabolism, only to be revived later when environmental conditions improve. Since tardigrades can be recovered many many years after their entering a state of cryptobiosis, it stands to reason they do not age.

Now, if a human is frozen into virtual cryptobiosis, I don't know if they would age either. If you are frozen, would your heart stop? Blood flow cease? We are a little more complicated organisms than tardigrades.

Amazing that I remember all of this about tardigrades but all the stuff I learned yesterday about T cell lymphomas is already gone.
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I took a Biology of Aging class as an undergrad (of course, that's been 7 or 8 years ago), and at that time, a lot of the aging theories were directly tied to metabolism. For example, in mammals, the size of the animal and it's metabolism are inversely correlated. Which mammals live the longest? Things like whales and elephants. Which mammals have the shortest lives? Rodents. (Even though I think the relationship breaks down within species, like with dogs).

Theoretically, higher rates of metabolism lead to higher levels of free radicals, cell membrane damage, and all that jazz. Also going along with higher metabolism is higher levels of mitotic activity, which can lead to shortening of telomeres, which leads to cell death. Theoretically, we already have a "fountain of youth" and it's telomerase. Unfortunately, cells that have telomerase activity when they aren't supposed to, usually turn into raging tumors. I think it's even been shown in study animals that increased telomerase activity reduces age-related changes, but all the animals die of multiple tumors.

As a side note, we probably already possess the technology to increase the maximum lifespan of humans. It has been shown in animals with very short lifespans (fruit flies), that if you prevent them from mating until "old age", over multiple generations, the average life span of the fruit flies increases substantially. Aging is probably the only deleterious biological function where there is no evolutionary pressure to fix the problem. The solution? No sex until you're old! Sure, it'll be several hundred years before the (theoretical )benefits show up, but you'd be doing humanity a swell favor.
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CameronFrye said:
It has been shown in animals with very short lifespans (fruit flies), that if you prevent them from mating until "old age", over multiple generations, the average life span of the fruit flies increases substantially. Aging is probably the only deleterious biological function where there is no evolutionary pressure to fix the problem. The solution? No sex until you're old! Sure, it'll be several hundred years before the (theoretical )benefits show up, but you'd be doing humanity a swell favor.
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Or the males at least. Another excuse for "old" men to impregnate young "fertile" females for the benefit of the species? ;)

Outside of the scientific discussion, I've always been curious as to what the benefit is from living longer (and by longer I mean past 100 years).
 
You can also increase life span via calorie deprivation. This may or may not ultimately come back to metabolism. I find that interesting, anyway. It has to be real calorie deprivation though, not "I'm going to skip that cookie I have after lunch."

Evolution is always a fascinating topic. There is no real evolutionary advantage for a woman to live past menopause, yet women live longer than men. Is that simply because the ability to live longer is not a "negative" trait, and therefore doesn't get bred out? There are other things which don't make sense from an evolutionary background.

Theoretically, anything that has a "negative" influence on reproduction should be bred out over millions of years. Even the slightest thing that gives an advantage should take priority, averaged out over eons. To use one particularly inflammatory example, what is the genetic advantage of homosexuality? From an evolutionary sense it makes no sense, because it by definition will not lead to reproduction. But because it still exists in humans, there must be something in homosexuality that provides something of a survival advantage. It cannot be explained by homosexuality being "hidden" by people denying it or living straight. That only explains individual people, not the trend over millions of years. Over millions of years any negative influence on survival would be weeded out, except for random, new mutations.

Terrible things like cancer and cystic fibrosis can be explained, because they are consequences of the extreme of something that may lead to a survival advantage.
 
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Bierstiefel said:
Why does Step 3 have to be a two day exam?!?!?
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It can really be done in a day too, the second day was short, I think i was done by 1pm or so. Just hope you don't show up for day 2 and find that the computers don't work. When I went the first time for Step III, the computers didn't work and they had to reschedule me. I don't know what happened to the people who had showed up for day 2 of their test, but the rules state the test has to be on two consecutive days. They probably got ****ed, one way or another.
 
Well, I'm actually sitting for Step II CK on Monday (after almost three years away from shelf exams and the like) and CS next Thursday. :eek:

I hope the computers don't give up on me. I recall from Step I (I took it the first year the test went on the computer - do the math) that every time the guy next to me coughed, my screen flickered on and off! Talk about distracting.

OK - off to USMLEWorld for another 12 hours. Dang, I forgot how much I love taking series of day long tests. :rolleyes:

P
 
yaah said:
It can really be done in a day too, the second day was short, I think i was done by 1pm or so. Just hope you don't show up for day 2 and find that the computers don't work. When I went the first time for Step III, the computers didn't work and they had to reschedule me. I don't know what happened to the people who had showed up for day 2 of their test, but the rules state the test has to be on two consecutive days. They probably got ****ed, one way or another.
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Yeah, I was outta there by 1:30 pm today. So glad that's over! Hopefully I passed and won't have to sit through a Step exam ever again!
 
A proposed benefit to women living long after menopause (I'm getting this out of Jared Diamond's fine pop-sci book "The Third Chimpanzee") is that pre-literate human groups needed a grandma or grampa or two around to pass on their accumulated survival lore. In surviving stone-age cultures, everyone quickly learns how to acquire the staple foods, but after a once-every-50 years disaster, it's only the grandparents who know where the nasty-but-edible stuff is at, 'cause they survived the last disaster.

Speaking about positive or negative traits, Diamond illustrates that a positive trait (or the elimination of a negative trait) is only worthwile if it's cost-effective. He uses the example of early 20th century battlecruisers- they were much faster than other ships of their size (positive trait), but they gained speed by sacrificing too much armor, so they got chewed up too quickly to be useful. Similarly, prolonging lifespan, growing wings or eliminating homosexual traits can only occur if the cost in biological space or effort is outweighed by the benefit.

In my fertile imagination, I see an effort to genetically dis-engineer and eliminate homosexuality backfiring by causing a species-wide dimunition of libido. Viva la difference!
 
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This really isn't very random but I am on blood bank and it is making me seriously depressed. :(

I don't even know what it is about it that sucks so much. I look at my watch approximately every 5 minutes all day. In some ways micro was worse but I don't remember feeling this intense level of melancholy.

*sigh* 4 days left in the week until a 2 day respite.

Share your blood bank thoughts! :)
 
Anti-Fya Anti-Fyb
 
Hi, yeah, the platelet count is at 48,000 but we need it to be at 50. Can we get a five pack? I know you're short of platelets but we really need to pull this line.

Blood bank didn't really make me depressed. Made me annoyed at times. But our rotation isn't terrible, we can actually leave the blood bank and do other necessary things (like EAT) during the day. Hemepath, on the other hand...
 
yaah said:
Blood bank didn't really make me depressed. Made me annoyed at times. But our rotation isn't terrible, we can actually leave the blood bank and do other necessary things (like EAT) during the day. Hemepath, on the other hand...
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Very true that we can at least leave the blood bank. I have been spending as little time in there as possible.

Now I'm petrified of heme. :eek: At least heme seems remotely interesting to me though, but maybe I am wrong having not done it yet.

Maybe I just have to get used to blood bank a little bit. Only been doing it a week so it is this weird combination of totally overwhelming yet totally boring at the same time.
 
I like heme a lot, but the way the rotation is set up here is that you basically spend the entire day either counting marrow aspirates or sitting at the scope while the attending drives the slides. Some are faster which makes it good, but others are slower and the day can basically run as : 9-10am = preview fluids and get patient histories all ready so that fluid signout goes as quickly as possible; 10am-noon (or so) = sit at scope while attending reviews fluids, provide requisite histories, etc. Noon-1pm = lunch and finish counting all the bone marrow aspirates that haven't been done yet, and perhaps preview cases that just came out. 1pm-4pm (varies, sometimes much later) = sit at scope while attending reviews marrows and lymph nodes.

When heme was less busy this was an effective way to do things, but now that there are upwards of 10 marrows and 3 lymph nodes or other tissues per day it is not! You learn a lot though...Once you get familar with things you get more efficient, of course.
 
beary said:
This really isn't very random but I am on blood bank and it is making me seriously depressed. :(

I don't even know what it is about it that sucks so much. I look at my watch approximately every 5 minutes all day. In some ways micro was worse but I don't remember feeling this intense level of melancholy.
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You mean the "OMFG this is Internal Medicine all over again! Get me outta here!"-type thoughts? :) With apologies to Anna Plastic and the other BBers, welcome to bloodbanking. It was my second 3-month CP block in first year. The work would expand to fill the day.

How many residents and fellows does it take to walk to the blood bank and collect the platelet re-evals? I can't believe I'm getting paid for this. I'm a glorified secretary!

My advice is to read. Whenever you can. It's surprisingly difficult. And do questions. That's how I study CP.

http://www.bbguy.org/education/notes/index.shtml (Also see "Quiz" section).

You'll forget it all, but it'll come back and bite you in the ass for boards.

I also want to say that heme apart from the organ system is nothing like blood bank. At least they employ scopes.
 
Wow. So I was in LA this past weekend. It was freezing - well okay not freezing but I was still needing a fleece. And there were all these chicas in bikinis on the beach. (Of note, the chica in a bikini wearing jeans with her fly undone.... soooo hawwt - NOT!)

Local: But aren't you from the Upper Midwest?
deschutes: Yeah, where it's 90 degrees!
 
Bump. I changed my log in cause I like this better. Need to play catch up on posts so I thought this thread would be a good way to go.
 
beary said:
Wow, I was just thinking of bumping this thread too!

So who were you before?
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Nobody important....he he...like our online personalities are important. Reminds me of that Brad Paisley song. Didn't have very many posts anyways only like 30. I'm an MS4 about to enter residency. I'll post my list in the 2008 thread.
 
WrightGiemsa said:
Nobody important....he he...like our online personalities are important. Reminds me of that Brad Paisley song. Didn't have very many posts anyways only like 30. I'm an MS4 about to enter residency. I'll post my list in the 2008 thread.
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Dang! Wish I could trade places with you. I'm starting my MS2 year and dreaming of far off pathology! I am really enjoying my path classes, though, and hoping I can spend some of my off time shadowing some of our pathologists.
 
hoping I can spend some of my off time shadowing some of our pathologists
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No matter what specialty you go into (hopefully path), the more you know about pathology and what a pathologist actually does will benefit you immensely in medicine.

I've noticed a direct correlation between the intelligence and medical acumen of a clinican/surgeon and their dealings with tissue, slides, and pathologists. We have some heme-oncs who look at their peripheral smears and aspirates. We have surgeons who come in to look at frozens as well as the whole case once it is processed.

Pathologists are typically sane, normal people. I love showing cases to medical students, residents, and clinicians. Many times, the medical students and residents will not have any idea what we really do but they do want to know and are often afraid to ask. I've had surgery residents who have tagged along with their attending to look at the frozen and when we are actually doing one for someone else and they will say "Oh, so that's what doing a frozen means"
 
Very odd game - ASU ran the same three plays the entire time, and they ran those three plays last year. You'd think a defense would have time and with all the talent they have, to prepare and be able to stop those three plays. But apparently not!
 
yaah said:
Very odd game - ASU ran the same three plays the entire time, and they ran those three plays last year. You'd think a defense would have time and with all the talent they have, to prepare and be able to stop those three plays. But apparently not!
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Yeah - were you at the game?

I bet everybody will be in a bad mood at work on Tuesday.
 
beary said:
Yeah - were you at the game?

I bet everybody will be in a bad mood at work on Tuesday.
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Nah. I don't think people will really take it personally. It's not ruining my good time! If the coaching staff and team didn't prepare appropriately for the game, I'm not going to let it bother me (hopefully it will bother them though). The defense is too ****ty and the quarterback too inconsistent for them to be a realistic contender this year anyway.

I am of a newer mindset now that I am going to stop letting athletes have a significant effect on my happiness. If they win, great, if they don't, too bad. Unless it's the red sox :oops:

But yes I was there. It was too ****ing hot.
 
yaah said:
I am of a newer mindset now that I am going to stop letting athletes have a significant effect on my happiness. If they win, great, if they don't, too bad. Unless it's the red sox :oops:
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:laugh: I enjoy Michigan football (and Iowa where I went to med school) but my heart is definitely still with the Huskers. It definitely affects me when they have bad games. Unfortunately that has been a lot the last few years so I'm sort of used to it. They looked good on Saturday though - hopefully Callahan has had a few years to get his West Coast Offense up and running.
 
That Michigan loss was a disgrace. I was in Michigan the weekend before and some of my friends weren't quick to write off App State. Seems like the Michigan fans here were upbeat about this season but all my friends back in Michigan were very concerned about the defense. Teams are gonna light up the scoreboard against Michigan unless they get their act together.
 
So, I'm planning a vacation for during 4th year - where is somewhere cool to go in December? Could either embrace the winterness, or the opposite. Main criteria is not too expensive. I sometimes get cruise offers in my E-mail, but then flying to Miami or somewhere might be an expense. As I think my location says, I am in Pittsburgh PA if that helps. Any suggestions would be awesome.
 
Sean2tall said:
So, I'm planning a vacation for during 4th year - where is somewhere cool to go in December? Could either embrace the winterness, or the opposite. Main criteria is not too expensive. I sometimes get cruise offers in my E-mail, but then flying to Miami or somewhere might be an expense. As I think my location says, I am in Pittsburgh PA if that helps. Any suggestions would be awesome.
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After Step 2 CK, I went to New Orleans for a long weekend. If you've never been, might be worth a trip - more enjoyable if you can get a small group of friends together. I recommend staying at the Omni Royal Orleans - it's kind of in the middle of the quarter, between bourbon street and jackson square, and if you join their Select Guest Program, it'll score you a free breakfast, paper and wifi. It's swank and I bagged a room for ~$100/night. Bourbon Street is what it is, plenty of booze and debauchery to be had, but New Orleans is full of great restaurants, a surprisingly hip shopping district, and best of all right now the hotels, air fare and rental cars are CHEAP as they try to encourage tourism post-Katrina.

The quarter was pretty much unflooded, and while the rebuilding is slow in a lot of the neighborhoods you're unlikely to notice during your visit. It is cheap to get there and stay there. In fact, unless you plan on doing a lot of side trips I'd skip the rental car and just take a cab - the parking rates at the hotels in the quarter can be expensive, and you might find the occasional cab fare cheaper.

Anyway, there's a suggestion for ya. Enjoy! :)
BH
 
Am I the only person who misses having this thread around?

I just noticed that SDN now has the added function of "Related threads" at the bottom of every threadview :) Now instead of telling people to use the Search function we get to tell them to scroll down!

Also, it occurred to me last night that another gauge of how strong the interest is in Pathology amongst residency applicants is by the sort of applicants who make it into the middle-tier programs. If stronger and stronger applicants are entering the middle-tier programs, it probably indicates that the competition at the top-tier programs is getting really tough.

(Now go over-analyze.)
 
Well, the problem with the "related threads" is that it only relates it to the title of the thread. So if you have a thread titled "Help me!" it will come up with other threads with similar titles even if they are not similar. I think that is a glitch which ruins part of the usefullness. But not all of it. Because now when someone new posts "Can anyone provide info about Texas programs?" it will pop up below. As I think I said earlier, threads created prior to a couple of weeks ago will not have that similar titles option, even if they are bumped.

Overanalyze? It clearly means we are all doomed. One attending here thinks that the candidates this year have also been more attractive. Maybe pathology is the new dermatology, except without the 8 hour days and oversupply of jobs.
 
I suppose limiting the "related thread" function by forum location might help.

yaah and anyone else - how did you estimate the # of surgicals you looked at for boards? Cos I have not met a resident who has kept a log of every case they have ever looked at.
 
We estimated by the average # of cases per month on each service, then added those up. I could do a search of the database using my name and get an official count, but not really worth it. I came up with about 15,000 I think.
 
Ha. Threads no longer have to be closed. For posterity's sake I am reposting and reopening this one. It is required reading up to about page 200. ;)
 
Long live the best thread ever (or, at least, the longest thread)!:cool:

yaah said:
Ha. Threads no longer have to be closed. For posterity's sake I am reposting and reopening this one. It is required reading up to about page 200. ;)
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yaah said:
My rental car this week is a Pontiac Vibe. What a gay automobile. I feel like the very tall man in the simpsons.
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I just randomly picked a page and decided to quote it. Made me laugh when i remembered that car. My car got damaged when some loser drug rep backed into my car while I was idled behind her while she ostensibly was going to pull into garage parking spot, but then stopped and backed up without realizing people were behind her. Wasn't her car so she didn't really give a crap. So I had to rent cars while it was repaired. First time I rented a gigantor pickup truck (a Silverado or something) because I had never had a pickup truck and wanted to see what it was like. It sucked. It was too big. It was nearly impossible to park it in any garage. I did feel patriotic though. But they ordered the wrong part for my car so I had to give gigantor back and then the next week when the part came in I rented a different car, and I got the Vibe. The license plate read DCHBAG.

I used to take pride in the fact that this was the only random thread that didn't have every other post as a "Hi cutie!" or a "sends hugs to yaah" type of post. I think this thread had the highest number of words/post of any pointless thread. What that means I have no idea, other than about 2-3 years ago none of us had lives.
 
yaah said:
I just randomly picked a page and decided to quote it. Made me laugh when i remembered that car. My car got damaged when some loser drug rep backed into my car while I was idled behind her while she ostensibly was going to pull into garage parking spot, but then stopped and backed up without realizing people were behind her. Wasn't her car so she didn't really give a crap. So I had to rent cars while it was repaired. First time I rented a gigantor pickup truck (a Silverado or something) because I had never had a pickup truck and wanted to see what it was like. It sucked. It was too big. It was nearly impossible to park it in any garage. I did feel patriotic though. But they ordered the wrong part for my car so I had to give gigantor back and then the next week when the part came in I rented a different car, and I got the Vibe. The license plate read DCHBAG.

I used to take pride in the fact that this was the only random thread that didn't have every other post as a "Hi cutie!" or a "sends hugs to yaah" type of post. I think this thread had the highest number of words/post of any pointless thread. What that means I have no idea, other than about 2-3 years ago none of us had lives.
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:D I rented one of those for an interview & remember feeling as though I was sitting on the floor (I normally drive an SUV). Now I'm not that tall, but I still felt as though the other cars were going to literally run over me and when I got out I could clearly see over the car's roof. When I put gas I made sure I got the pump that was furthest away from anyone else. ;)
 
It wasn't as bad as the Geo I was given when I had just turned 25 and the rental company didn't trust me because of my age, so they gave me a Geo. Holy hell. I was on the highway with the pedal on the floor, eventually I got to 65 (speed limit was 70) and the car was shaking and wouldn't go any faster. And the floor of the car was paper thin, I heard every little pebble that bounced up. The amazing thing was it had a lot of leg room!

Now that I am in my 30s I get mad respect from rental car companies.
 
When I flew in for my UCSF interview, Budget gave me a Saturn Sky for my $20 "compact" hotwire rental, just to get it off the lot. That was a good time... always pays to ask what else is available (they first offered me some sort of pontiac...)

BH
 
Ha! I'm 6'4" and drive a Yaris. Take that, The Simpsons!

And yes, it really was the largest automobile I could afford! ;)

-X

yaah said:
It wasn't as bad as the Geo I was given when I had just turned 25 and the rental company didn't trust me because of my age, so they gave me a Geo. Holy hell. I was on the highway with the pedal on the floor, eventually I got to 65 (speed limit was 70) and the car was shaking and wouldn't go any faster. And the floor of the car was paper thin, I heard every little pebble that bounced up. The amazing thing was it had a lot of leg room!

Now that I am in my 30s I get mad respect from rental car companies.
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So it looks like we have a new ADMINSTRATOR (Yaah). Congrats! :) There have been countless times that I've been helped by your posts. I must admit however that the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw this new change was...how can I exploit this opportunity for my own evil purposes? ;)
 
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