Distributing Clues to the Physicians of Tomorrow

So as long as I'm being incapacitated by the debate, I'll take a few minutes to tell y'all what I've been up to: arguing with medical students. Seriously, this takes up a lot of my time and mental energy. I've been in fight mode for months, ever since we moved to a purple state. Here are some of the, er, talking points I've been, er, talking about.

• Childbirth involves pooping. I swear, no medical student with whom I have yet had this conversation knew this, except the one who has already given birth herself.
• Once your patient is addicted to painkillers, please do not kid yourself that witholding the scrip he needs is going to get him off pills. It is going to send him out on the street to score. Get him into treatment if you can, but get off your high horse first.
  
• Please be aware that weight loss is a no-win strategy for your obese patients. Even if you don't know that a target of BMI under 25 is both arbitrary and bullshit (which, to be fair, most med students seem to have grasped just fine without benefit of my conversation), under 5% of them will ever be able to maintain a "normal" BMI over any long term. So stop recommending snake oil and start looking into the evidence.
• There is no board certification in an "Abortion Doctor" specialty. Primarily gynecologists and family practictioners provide abortions. Except, of course, primarily they don't, because they don't want to be shot.
• You cannot be a competent physician and scared of bodies at the same time. Get over it, starting with being wo/man enough to use the communal shower at the gym.
• Stop talking about the questions on the exam you just took. I don't know if the answer was glycogen synthase. You sound like you are decompensating.
  
• As a student doctor you are held to a higher standard. Tough noogies. It is your responsibility to correct whatever deficiencies in your education have allowed you to reach this point in your career without realizing the following:
  

1. Teenagers have sex.
2. Teenagers have sexually transmitted diseases.
   
3. Teenagers have babies.
4. Many people have cancer and it's got nothing to do with you.
5. No one cares how you feel about performing a digital rectal exam.
   
6. Dressing up as a stripper pole for Halloween will make many of your colleagues uncomfortable.
7. While "retarded" is in some contexts an appropriate description for some of your patients' symptoms, it is not an appropriate description of, say, NAFTA.
8. Iran is not communist.
   
9. McCain is not pro-choice, nor is he neutral on abortion.
10. The following is not a valid critique of diversity: "The great thing about Wisconsin is that even though there aren't a lot of black people in some areas, people aren't mean about it."
11. The following is not an intelligent critique of the election: "What worries me about Obama is that he's coming to power the same way Hitler did."
12. Medical students are not better than other people. Some of them are worse.
    

Feels good to get off my chest how draining it is.