The Haversian Canal

Ever wonder what criteria have to be met in order for something to be a medical school? Here they are, at least in the US: the Liason Committee on Medical Education's standards.

I couldn't talk to my wife because the cell phone doesn't work in the condo where I stay during the work week. The cell phone doesn't work because the condo's skin is corrugated sheet metal, a nice gaussian box. So I got in the car and called her back. While I was driving around I went to McDonald's because it was 10 pm and I hadn't eaten dinner yet (screwed up sleep cycle leads to a screwed up eating cycle) and McDonald's was the only thing open. The man at the first drive-through window (pay first, get the grease at the next window) had a headset on. The headset was held together with duct tape. So this guy had duct tape in his hair. And I'll bet he wasn't the first one to have that duct tape in his hair. I bet that duct tape has traveled many a head. Any idea how many lice and other tiny critters are running around that thing? He was very courteous and prompt and intelligent enough to be normal and trustworthy enough to have the register. With used duct tape in his hair. Here but for chance go I.

This Wall Street Journal Opinion article has some interesting ideas, but the analogy between Wasabism and Protestantism is a bit flawed. I talked to a classmate who was a religion major and studied wasabism first-hand while serving as the resident assistant for the muslim floor of his dormitory (he's muslim). Basically, unlike Martin Luther and his ilk, who went 'back to basics' by looking for a deeper, simpler idea man's relationship with God, abstracting all unnecessary traditions, the Wasabists go 'back to basics' by looking for the most literal possible interpretation of the Koran, trying to live as much as possible in the short, nasty, brutish world that the Prophet lived in and, presumably, worked to reform.

Am I misrepresenting this? If so, please contact me.

http://www.humansecurityreport.info/
http://hdr.undp.org/

Grand Rounds Volume 2 Issue 7 is up at MSSP Nexus.

I was riding my bike home tonight about 8 pm when a young man in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts waved me down and asked me to go find security because a man was beating up a woman by the parking garage. I told him to call 911 and pedaled around the corner of the parking garage (technically on a small drive called Lamar Fleming Avenue) to the scene. I first saw the woman storming away from the man. I never saw anyone lay a hand on someone else. She saw me, came over and asked to use my phone to call 911 and the man (Anthony) came up and started yelling at the other witness (Stan), who actually saw Anthony push his wife to the ground. She gave me my phone back saying it wouldn't dial 911. I successfully called 911 at 8:13, she (I didn't get a name) started yelling at Anthony, walked right up to him, gesticulating as much as he was, and then she walked briskly off into the night. I was wearing cycling shoes with cleats so I tried to walk after her but she out-paced me. I figured her departure wasn't a bad thing, considering the basic goal was to separate the two of them, so I returned to check on Stan and Anthony. Anthony then yelled at me for a few minutes while I talked to the 911 dispatcher, then I gave the phone to Anthony and he yelled at the dispatcher and gave the phone back to me, impressively shifting the subject of his yelling seamlessly from me to the dispatcher back to me again. He pointed out his fat lip from where his wife hit him. He told me about how she divorced him and came back to him, how she stabbed him frequently, hit him often, and he'd just had enough of it. Somewhere during this the dispatcher assured me an officer was on the way and she hung up. After another minute a couple more minutes Anthony started walking away, still yelling at us. And then Stan, the witness left. At 8:23, 10 minutes after placing the call to 911, the dispatcher called me back to make sure the patrol car had come, and it hadn't, which surprised her, and she asked if a car still needed to come. I said apparently not, as everyone, including the other witness, had left, so that was it. Moral of the story: sketchy folk around here after dark, and the police response could be better.

I rode away wondering if that's what I should I done. I keep replaying the scenario and coming to no better conclusion. Meanwhile, the reason I stayed late, to study anatomy before the upcoming test, hasn't gone away. Histology exam Thursday, Gross Anatomy on Monday. Gotta go.

Here's a good article on inks, from André Béguin's fascinating little dictionary of printmaking.

André provides a three volume hardcopy of his dictionary; his contact information is

2 rue Danville, 75014 Paris, France.
tel./fax. +33.1.43.21.41.16.

The Afgahn poet Nadia Anjuman, a member of the Herat Literary Circle during the Taliban's rule, is dead, aged 25 years. Her husband has been arrested in connection to her death.

Animal Planet is hosting a live feed of the National Zoo's pandas, particularly the baby panda. So cute.

As you can see I now have Flickr and del.icio.us links on the side. So pictures are taken care of and my recent interesting links should be taken care of as well. Now my posts have to have actual thoughts. I have to think? Oh no.

Geena recently advocated for calling an ambulance if experiencing a possible heart attack or stroke. In the US this is a very good idea. In France, I'm not so sure. I recently attended a lunch lecture by Dr Kenneth Maddox, who detailed the final hours of Princess Diana. Basically he presented a strong case to suggest that she wasn't dead but was beyond hope after the accident, however, he took the opportunityy to discuss her transport to the hospital, which was a couple miles away but took several hours. He basically summarized the situation thusly: French ambulances are basically station wagons: there's no room for paramedics to work on the patient while in the vehicle, so their protocol is "stay and play" rather than the US protocol, which is "load and go". This is part of an overall different system of health care where the emergency medicine needs are largely met by anesthetists. Anesthetists. Anesthetists. Anesthetists.

I understand the philosophical desire to die in peace with dignity and grace; anesthetists would be good for that sort of thing. Personally, I'm more a rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light sort of guy and want a herd of trauma surgeons meeting me at the door of the ED. Load and go. If that means calling an ambulance in the US, so be it. If it means getting someone besides French EMS to take me, that's what I'll do. In fact, if I ever get stationed in France, you can bet I'll be making arrangements with my neighbors regarding this.

Geena has Grand Rounds, Volume 2, Number 9 up at code blog.

An interesting introduction to the idea that made flickr and del.icio.us such huge successes. Will marketeers manage to fully tap into this data? Will that undermine culture as we know it? Will society fragment into millions of tiny cells? Would that be a culture in and of itself?

Of course, if you're a marketeer-wannabe, here is a short course in conducting market analysis.

There are 79000 children between 0 and 18 in Brazos County. The US Department of Education estimates 6.7% of children under 18 has an activity limitation. This is reasonably similar to independently gathered information indicating that 18% of US children have special needs, 51% of whom need OT. Autism occurs at a rate of 1 to 2 per 1000, based on population studies. Many other children, such as those with Asberger's syndrome, very low birth weight, and TBIs enjoy proven benefits from occupational therapy services.

One of the last antedeluvian pictures of Charity Hosptial

So I was reading Grand Rounds and read Dr Lei's article on the 'fear' gene, stathmin

Mice who were genetically engineered to have inactive stathmin genes lacked the ability to sense fear. In situations where normal mice would freeze in fear, such as a particular area of the cage where electric shocks were administered, mice lacking stathmin would continue about their business.

Then I read Maria's article on assessing the potential for future violence in any particular patient, which led me to this Wikipedia entry on antisocial personality disorder. Read paragraph four

Research has shown that individuals with APD are indifferent to the possibility of physical pain or many punishments, and show no indications that they experience fear when so threatened; this may explain their apparent disregard for the consequences of their actions, and their lack of empathy when others are suffering.

Does stathmin present a target for anti-APD therapy?