When people go to a teaching hospital, I think it's important for them to understand how the teams are structured. In internal medicine, from lowest to highest.

• Medical Student
• Subintern
• Intern
• Resident
• Fellow
• Attending

Everyone from an intern to an attending has a MD and has the potential of having a medical license.

Everyone from a fellow on down is training. 

Like any other organization with a rigid heirarchy, it's important to know the rank of the person you are talking to, but there is ask a right way and a wrong way to ask for that information.  It's always nicer to guess higher and get corrected to something lower, than the other way around.  In other words, if you ask the fellow if he is a medical student, he will probably be pretty annoyed by you.  Most likely, it shouldn't affect the type of care that you get, but why go out of your way to irritate the person you're trusting to take care of you?

It always make me very angry, when I read a patient history that goes somewhere along these lines.  Patient originally presents to hospital with {treatable cancer} X years ago.  Patient declined chemotherapy at that time, and instead opted for homeopathic therapy.  Patient now represents to hospital with widely metastatic cancer.  Then you need to explain to the person, "originally you had a cancer we could treat, instead you decided to wait until all we had left to offer you is a joke about green bananas or costco size mayo jars."  Usually when you go to an academic institution, oncologists offer chemo they don't really push chemo.  If you say no, that's that.  It's not like a blood pressure or diabetes medication, where the doctor will beg and bargain with you.  If an oncologist is willing to talk to you for a hour everyday pleading with you to take the chemo, you should fucking take the chemo.  

If you spend 30 minutes yelling at your doctor about the "service" you received at the hospital that ranged from every the scheduling of exams to the quality of the food, and the doctor responds with, "I understand you're very frustrated.  You've just gotten a very serious diagnosis, so it's very reasonable for you to be upset about the way things happen at the hospital," he is trying to give you an out.  He is willing to chalk up being yelled at to frustration/fear regarding the terrible nature of the diagnosis.  Do not follow that statement up with, "I would be yelling at you regardless of the diagnosis because I just don't have any patience for incompetence, so I think it's important for everyone to know how poorly this hospital is run," that only makes him think you are being an asshole.  

So recently, I've been complaining about how I hate living in NYC, and how I just don't feel motivated to do anything.  So I end up going to Adventures NYC, which is this event sponsored by the NYC Parks and Recreation department.  It was a free event, in which I was able to score a free bike helmet (despite the fact I don't own a bike) and a 10 pack of power-aid.  They also had lots of random things like free EANABs and bags of potato chips.  All in all, this was probably my most productive use of 2 hours in NY. 

Apparently, they have these ads all over the East Village.  I love the rhetorical question, "Think that sounds mean?"  Actually no, I think it sounds fucking hilarious, and I literally have more video games than friends.

You know with all the failings of the US healthcare system, we are still pretty good at dealing with cancer.  The CONCORD study, published in Lancet Oncology 2008 looked at 5 year survival in Breast, Colon, Rectum, Colorectal, and Prostate Cancer in different countries.  

Nothing makes you feel old than a poll like this, which I saw on Gamefaqs.com

Which classic EA-owned property would you most like to see new games from?

Crusader                       2.05%
Populous                      4.84%
Road Rash                  17.50%
System Shock             14.96%
Theme Park                   8.58%
Ultima                           9.89%
Wing Commander           7.04%
I've never heard of any of those        35.14%
TOTAL VOTES                     68597

God damn, young people who never heard of any of these games before.  I angrily shake my cane at you.

BTW, I voted for Wing Commander.  Granted retrospectively, I probably should have voted for Crusader.

I remember back in undergrad we always joked that people in Phi Psi
couldn't get dates. Today, I got an invitation for Founder's Day at
Michigan Alpha. True to the Phi Psi spirit, they decided to schedule
Founder's Day celebration for 2/14.

Minus the vein that looks like it's about to explode. Today I best
one of the BEST games of all time. I finished Metal Gear Solid 4.
This winter break instead of doing social things like going out and
even talking to other human beings like normal people, I decided that
I would start and finish MGS4. It's actually a remarkably short game.
 It only takes a long time if you suck, i.e. me. However, after a
week of fumbling around with my thumb up my ass (granted it made the
controller smell bad), I finally finished the game. It was awesome.
I was tempted to pick the game back up and start playing all over
again, but I suppose I'm just lame like that.

 Recently, people have been telling me that geography makes a huge
difference in terms of residency selection. I think I've realized, I
hate going out. I hate bars. I hate needing to yell when I want to
talk to someone. I guess I'll make an exception for when I went out
with some of Tony's friends recently. War stories are awesome. I
shall return to my original belief that if I have an internet
connection, TV, and game system, I can probably live anywhere.

They have the weirdest commercials at 4:30 AM. I just saw an
anti-alcohol PSA. Basically, a kid is hanging out at home, and he
goes into the fridge to steal one of his dad's beers. But someone
dressed as Harry Potter breaks into this guy's house, points to his
beer, and makes it disappear. The commercial ends with the statement,
"Wizards don't drink underage." You know somehow, I imagine that the
guys who are going to be swayed by Harry Potter, are not going to be
the guys who will be drinking underage.