So much for one major religion, then.

Examine your prejudices.

So I guess I can't be Catholic. The Vatican recently released "On the Dignity of Persons"--in Latin, of course, to make it sound cooler--in which Cardinal Ratzinger (he'll always be Cardinal Ratzinger to me, because it sounds so much more appropriate than Pope Benedict...which just sounds like a sacreligious breakfast dish) decried stem cell research and the morning-after pill as the harbingers of the end times. Well, not exactly, but he called them both mortal sins, ie Very Bad Things.

Here's the thing. The morning after pill prevents implantation of the (potential) embryo, which at that point is (if anything) a collection of several cells--like, literally less than 100. (See, Dr. C, I paid attention during your embryology lectures!) It doesn't kill it. It keeps it from glomming onto the uterus, which is what happens more than 50% of the time anyway. It isn't abortion (which I'm also not saying is wrong...but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish), so even if you're opposed to abortion, you don't have to be against the morning-after pill.

I honestly think every woman who's begun to menstruate should have the morning-after pill, or a prescription for it, in her medicine cabinet (well, actually in her dresser drawer, since the temperature fluctuations and humidity in the bathroom could screw with the drug). Am I saying everyone should be out not using contraception? C'mon now, don't you know me better than that? Sometimes contraceptive methods fail. Sometimes the condom breaks. Sometimes you realize the next morning that, yeah, you were both really drunk and didn't use one, and after saying a few mea culpas and vowing never to be that irresponsible again, you need something else to do. In short, life happens, ergo shit happens.

But (hold on while I get out my soapbox...) EVEN IF you're one of those who thinks heathen young women having sex out of wedlock should have to "face the consequences" of their actions (yes, person purportedly so concerned about an unborn child's wellbeing, let's think of the kid as a 'consequence' rather than a person--do you not see the intrinsic cognitive dissonance there? And let's not even get me started about the heathen young men who get off scot-free, morally speaking, because boys will be boys...) those aren't the only people who use the morning after pill. Here I will insert a

**Self-disclosure alert**

I have used the morning-after pill. If I were ever in the same situation again, I would use it again without hesitation, even knowing the side effects (it made me so nauseous I had to go get another prescription to replace the one I'd urped up, as well as a few hits of promethazine--ie Phenergan, an antiemetic that had the nice fringe benefit of making me tired enough not to care if I was feeling vomitous). I was raped my freshman year of college. September of my freshman year of college. The only thing that could have made it a more fantastic start to my academic career? If I had gotten pregnant. I realize most people dismiss this as The Extreme Example, but honestly it's not as rare as you'd think; 25% of college-age women experience rape or attempted rape at some point during their schooling.

If my God/Divinity/Ultimate Reality required a young woman to carry her rapist's baby, I would look for another one. Or maybe I'd talk to Her directly and see what She had to say, rather than getting it secondhand from a lifelong-celibate male (ahem).

Fears and Vindication

Finals are upon us. A time of trepidation, of fear, but also of vindication.
The holidays are also upon us; likewise, a time of mingled despair and delight.

What am I afraid of? Unreasonably afraid of?
I am afraid of failure, but more than that I am afraid of mediocrity.
Less existentially, I am afraid of food poisoning--I've only had it once, but it left a lasting impression. Salmonella and e. coli especially.
I am afraid of never finding "the One"--the person to spend the rest of my life with.
I am afraid of flying.
Spiders.
Failing medical school and having to live in a box under a bridge.
That I will never be truly happy, because I'll never really know what that even looks like.
That everyone else knows what they're doing, and I somehow missed picking up the secret instruction book that the rest of the world is reading from.
Cancer.

What am I proud of, vindicated about?
That two of my finals are over, and I passed them.
That I've survived this long in one piece (it's been a bigger task than you might think).
That I'm blogging again.
That for the most part I manage to prevent myself from indulging in sophomoric navel-gazing like this.

What about you?

I know I am a medical student because

I get nearly 100% of my fluids from caffeinated beverages.

I have gone out drinking after an anatomy exam...at 11 in the morning.

I spend more time on my cadaver's body on a given day than I do on my own in roughly a week.

I have skipped class...in order to study.

I have learned so many mnemonic devices, I have trouble keeping them all straight (and they all have to do with drinking or sex--especially the ones I've written for myself).

I can now eat a meal while discussing dissection technique (and in fact did so on Sunday night...thanks for the dinner and calvaria-removal talk, Dr. Ginder!)

I have realized that while showers can wait, and laundry can wait, anatomy waits for no man (or woman).

I have had dreams about the brachial plexus.

I have come, after almost a semester of medical school, to realize that I have more to learn than I could ever have previously fathomed. This is both very humbling and terribly exciting.

I don't wanna.

Anatomy exam 2 came and went. I did better on this exam than I did on the last one, which pleases me, but not as well as I would have liked (of course, anything less than a 100 is 'not as well as I would have liked,' given my inherent OCDish-perfectionist tendencies, so this is somewhat less than surprising). So the limbs are done. And the pelvis, and the perineum. On to the head and neck! Onward and upward to the Circle of Willis, I say! And on to a biochem quiz!

One problem.
I don't wanna.

Woke up at 3:30 this morning, couldn't get back to sleep, and I don't wanna. Don't want to go to my PCP preceptor's office this afternoon; don't want to study for my biochem exam (though I have been, don't get me wrong); don't want to learn physiology or biochemistry this morning. And yet I will do all these things. Because that is what adulthood in general, and professional school specifically, is about. Mostly doing things that you're excited about, but on some days, when you just want to stay in bed and look at cuteoverload.com or maybe watch an Eddie Izzard DVD or finish that painting you've been putting off...going into lecture or lab anyway. Bleargh.

When do political issues become medical issues?

And I'm not even talking about health plans here. I'll leave aside for a moment tax credits vs. Medicare-for-all vs. universal employer coverage (which, by the way, still isn't analogous to universal coverage). I'm thinking specifically about the recent outcomes of Prop 8 in California (to ban same-sex couples from getting married), and of the Arkansas vote to prevent unmarried couples, gay or straight, from adopting children.
Now, you might say it's a good thing for children to be raised in intact homes. That's true. There are, however, intact and loving homes that haven't been marked with the state's official seal of approval (ie, a marriage license). Add to that the fact that the parents in some intact and loving homes, by virtue of legislation like Proposition 8 in CA, can NEVER become married--and the fact that various agency representatives in AR have said they basically intend to look the other way on the marriage issue "as long as they ain't queers or nothin'" (OK, so I've dramatized a bit) and you have a message of hate masquerading as concern for child welfare, which makes an already regrettable attitude downright despicable.
Am I saying this on account of the fact that I--at some point in my adolescence--'caught the gay?' Well, yeah, in part. But I'm also saying it because I know gay parents who have only managed to be legally recognized as the parents of their offspring through processes like second-parent adoption, and this sort of law threatens the ability of my tribe to create families. So what's second-parent adoption, you ask? Essentially, Mary and Alice are a couple. Mary gets artificially inseminated, maybe with Alice's egg to make the experience more equally 'shared'--but also a damned sight more confusing. So, Mary gives birth to the baby and is thus listed on the birth certificate. But, lo and behold, there's only space for one parent of each sex on the birth certificate, so Alice is S.O.L. until she secures a second-parent adoption, which establishes her as another mother. OK, I lied, it's not actually that confusing--just frustrating and lame.

So let's say (Goddess forbid) something happens to Mary, and there's no adoption, and no marriage. Well, if Mary listed Alice as the child's next guardian, it's all OK (well, not really, because if Mary's parents don't like it, they can contest it in court and in Arkansas chances are they'd win) and the right person ends up with the kid. But if Mary hasn't made a will? If she hasn't been thinking about her mortality, if her death wasn't anticipated, and she accidentally steps out in front of the 29 bus some morning? It would be nice to say that Alice, as the child's de facto other mother, would automatically get custody...but it would only be nice to say, because it wouldn't be true. Mary and Junior are both injured in a car accident and both incapacitated? Guess what--if they live in the wrong state and Alice hasn't officially been invested with healthcare decision-making power for her partner, Alice can't legally make medical decisions for either one of them.

That's when political issues become medical issues, and why a physician with the best interest of the patient at heart must be aware of both.

Who says there's no fun allowed in med school?

Quotables from the most recent set of lectures

"You can in fact exercise your pubococcygeus muscles. There are exercises called Kegels, and the best thing about them is that no one knows you're doing them...you can stand at the podium and contract them as you're lecturing, for example, and no one has any idea." --Our very funny anatomy prof with an AMAZING British accent

"There are many theories as to why humans evolved bipedal locomotion. To see cheetahs in high grass and avoid being eaten; to be able to wade into water to fish without drowning; to be at the right level to harvest grain. My personal opinion is that it evolved to enable us to drink Bud Light. Try drinking from a can while on all fours sometime...maybe after you've had a couple already. Very difficult. Hence, bipedalism."--Another anatomy prof in a stunning nonsequitor

(On trans fats) "What did you guys have for breakfast? Any McDonalds? How about a glazed doughnut? No? What did you have?"
Student: "Cottage cheese and a bagel."
Prof: "Man, you guys are boring. I knew when I didn't get any questions after the midterm that you were low-key, but...anyway, there are about 5 grams of trans fats in a bagel, 10 in a McDonald's McMuffin. You're only supposed to have 2 grams, max, a day, so after one McMuffin--bam--you're dead for a week."

Limericks (no, not from Ireland...less dirty)

For Table 10

There was an anatomy table
That quite simply did not seem able
To dissect with the speed
The professors decreed;
in the end, the stress made them unstable.


Standardized patient--failure

I entered the room with a grin,
Asked the patient, "So how have you been?"
HPI and exam,
then I thought, "oh g*ddamn,"
because I forgot to foam in.


Upper and Lower Limbs

I've been studying muscles for weeks,
lumbricals down to gluteal cheeks.
Can't learn one more insertion;
Such crazy exertion
can't help but reduce me to shrieks.


Histology

I can use a microscope well.
Preparing a slide? That's just swell.
But then point out some bug,
and I'll say with a shrug,
"I can tell you it looks like a cell."