Conflicting Medical Opinion

(Reposted from an email forward.)

When the hospital Board of Directors asked a panel of doctors to vote on adding a new wing to their hospital, the Allergists voted to scratch it and the Dermatologists advised no rash moves.

The Gastroenterologists had a gut-feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve, and the Obstetricians stated they were all labouring under a misconception.

The Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted; the Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead Body" - while the Paediatricians said, "grow up!"

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, the Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing, and the Radiologists could see right through it.

The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow; the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter."

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists felt the scheme wouldn't hold water.

The Anaesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

... and in the end, the Proctologists left the decision up to some asshole.

Image or Personality Look-alikes?

COMEDY. From Mark Bautista... to Megawati Sukarnoputri? Saan ka pa?

Listening Spells Harry Potter

NO SPOILERS. :-)

At exactly 4:17 pm today after a marathon two months (coinciding with my Internship in Surgery), I finished absorbing all seven books of Harry Potter written by J.K. Rowling. Absorbing - because I read through the first two and part of the third, before finishing the third up to the seventh by listening to Jim Dale's animated narration of the unabridged text.

Getting Potter-ized suddenly and in so short a time frame is a unique experience. I never thought that I would actually get hooked onto the series, let alone be driven to finish it all fast.

I enjoyed the way Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows complemented each other, the former spinning a lot of mysteries that would, after a great deal of suspense, be resolved in the latter.

I also agree with the school of thought that perhaps J.K. Rowling's work should not have been classified entirely as "children's" books, even as the first three do spin a sort of magical, feel-good tale appropriate for the magical thinking of young ones and those who have controlled episodes of regression into youth. The moment Goblet of Fire starts weaving its plot, suddenly Harry Potter seems to have breached into the shelves of Teen Romance, ultimately ending up in Adult Fiction by the time Deathly Hallows wraps up.

Did Ms. Rowling plan Harry from the beginning as a market-winning franchise capable of adapting to the growth of its readers? The ideal reader in this line of reasoning should therefore have started Sorcerer's Stone when s/he was thirteen, give or take a few years. Maybe the appeal of the series is precisely in that style of "growing with the story"; older readers like myself find that we are once more brought into the innocence of pre-puberty, the angst of adolescence (Order of the Phoenix!), and the maturation expected of those "who have come of age" - seventeen for wizards and witches, eighteen for us muggles, but in truth not quantifiable and manifest in different ways among different cultures.

My experience being different in that the novel was read to me (thanks Jim Dale) by today's modern storyteller of an mp3 player also played a role in my enjoying the story.

A sequel would be pushing Harry too much...

...but I'll definitely be going to the planned Harry Potter theme park once it opens.

A Benign Rotation

Spot the not: what's wrong with this picture?

But the picture's not the point. There's a whole bunch of 'em weird PGH scenes though here.

This past week, I've been snapping away at those scenes among other things, and I've finished Books 1 to 6 of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

I'm now at Chapter 12 of HP and the Deathly Hallows, still as read aloud by Jim Dale. So far, Book 4 (Goblet of Fire) has been my favorite, followed perhaps by Book 6's revelations and explanations on the world of Harry and its vindication of my distrust against Severus Snape.

Anyway.

This past week also saw me buying a lot of medical "review books", select titles from each of the following sets: High Yield, First Aid, Board Review Series, Blueprint, Recall, etc. It was more of a bandwagon effect, after having seen my classmates buying copies in preparation for the Medical Board Exams come August 2008.

Yes, after hearing a few weeks back the success stories of UP Medicine Class 2007 members who are now licensed physicians, the pressure has shifted to our class. I have this fear of not passing the boards (Who doesn't? Ah, maybe the topnotchers...), most notably because I'm not the "regular reader" type of student.

Let's see - I'm running out of things to write about. Which brings me to the point of this post - I'm relatively benign at this point in my Internship.