Of Mid Patho Musings #2

med vs law- ne'er the twain shall meet

the rivalry between these two faculties was recently revived with a med vs law challenge, which comprises rugby, floorball and soccer matches, as well as a debate. i guess to make it fair to both sides, they needed to find common ground for the debate. the result? "this house believes that it is dangerous for society to pay its lawyers more than its doctors." law won, but we got best speaker. it was interesting for various reasons, for example when how one of the law debators pointed out that a member of the medicine team had failed his anatomy. he then asked the audience,"would you want a doctor who failed his anatomy to treat you?" that got loud boos from the medicine supporters. also, how the different clientèle accounts for the discrepancy in pay ("we can't help it if starhub launches its ipo at $65 million...and we take a half a percent cut of that") and that lawyers are required to provide some sort of legal aid or pro bono work, both overseas and in singapore. the figures? in america, it is a grand total of...*drum roll*...fifty hours per year per lawyer.

in response, prof tambyah revealed that twenty years ago he was an anatomy borderline viva student himself. that was a cue for loud cheers from the medicine camp. heh. and i was really tempted to go up and point out certain things (like how it appeared from the law team's points that only subhas anandan is the only lawyer doing any pro bono work, and that doctors are probably the only profession that have to work up to 36 hour shifts and still be expected to save a life at the end of it) but i didn't. i guess we're comparing apples and oranges here, but i'm reminded of how a certain orthopaedic prof asked me repeatedly during my admission interview," do you think medicine is a smart way to earn money?"

chalk and cheese, indeed.

patho

i honestly don't know how much is going in, and how much i'm retaining. cancer alone is an alphabet soup (apc, bax, bcl, p53, mdm2, cdk, vegf...) and after a while, all the morphologies of the various conditions all congeal to form a sorry mess of liquefactive necrosis. and then there's forensics too, which is not the sort of csi stuff but just facts and procedures to be memorised. can't wait for it to be over, because that means that i am free to do my cny shopping and free to do just about anything...before m5 starts.

news

heath ledger is dead. the fed has cut interest rates. obama is just behind clinton in the presidential race. the oscars might be cancelled. mumbler passed her paeds and o&g postings.

'tis an interesting world we live in, no?