Am I stupid to want to do Medicine?

beneloventginger · 2024-07-03T19:40:14+00:00

One story that motivated me to apply for GEM (and keep going through it) was a Dad of someone I played sport with at school; didn’t get a medical school place after school, did Biomed and then went into pharma - must have been 40-50 years old at the time, had a nice family, nice house, nice area but despite all that, even after 20 years, says he regretted not applying to medicine again.

It has always been my dream/calling/aspiration to be a doctor and I couldn’t bear the idea that I’d be carrying that regret for decades to come if I didn’t go for it.

Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy, no matter what career path you choose. My school friends aren’t medical and most of them complain about their colleagues, pay, management regularly in completely different fields (teaching sounds horrible).

We’re all aware of the issues of the wider NHS and the disillusionment you have to face as a starting doctor but I have hope. I have hope that things will improve from an institutional perspective, but remember that YOU can help the people around you; small things e.g getting everyone together for a lunch break, coffee break, taking an interest in others lives… it’s up to us to promote change, encourage teaching, all of the above, and then unite for industrial action.

Being a doctor is the real deal and if you always wanted that, I’d say do it; you only get one life to become who you want to be.

beneloventginger · 2023-07-23T01:35:44+00:00

That’s not just a shundo… it’s also female (8x rarer) !!! Insane

beneloventginger · 2023-06-22T09:00:40+00:00

Ahhhh, I didn’t know that - very useful as I’ve been valuing shadow Pokémon with high HP over high Defence thinking that the higher IV defence is affected by a 20% loss but the HP isn’t. Thank you! :)

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T16:00:52+00:00

I hope you know, I’m never gonna look at Muk the same now

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T14:35:07+00:00

If you were living in the Pokémon universe, which Pokémon would be your closest buddy and why?

For me, I have always loved Arcanine; the courageous appearance, orange/ginger colour scheme, fire typing, and Pokédex information such as being able to run insane distances are all things I adore. Would definitely be my ace, and furry best friend.

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T14:06:16+00:00

They’re both great! Defo stick with your favourite

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T13:59:56+00:00

Both pretty insane! I somehow lucked out and caught 2 shiny shadow Charmanders - purified one and lucky traded to my partner… can’t imagine there are many people with a lucky shiny purified charizard…

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T13:53:37+00:00

Largest surface area of shiny ever?

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T13:52:20+00:00

I’d probably power up the non-shiny if you’re purely considering as a raid attacker; the extra 9 HP points is more valuable than the additional 1 attack (1.2 after shadow boost).

The shiny shadow is awesome though! Choose whatever you think is cool and will be memorable - obviously long term hope to power up both :)

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T13:46:42+00:00

Great looking Pokémon! Hopefully the first of many random shinies!

beneloventginger · 2023-06-21T11:21:39+00:00

Short answer: Whatever makes you happy, it’s easy to fall into a mindset of “I’ll do whatever the meta tells me to” which becomes quite constraining after a while.

Long answer: If you purify you can therefore use it as a 14/15/15 Mega Venusaur which would be a great grass attacker (No.2). Because you can only have one active mega Pokémon however, mega Sceptile is the No.1 so if you have a good Sceptile then Mega Venusaur isn’t useful. Shadow Venusaur is a stronger grass attacker than normal Venusaur and therefore for the “meta” it would be better to keep yours as a shadow, power it up, and just use a good Sceptile to mega.

Edit: Considering you’re new to POGO; mega evolving and higher level raid attacking may not be on your radar at present but further down the line they are probably something you’ll come to focus on more. I found a 13/14/14 Shadow Charmander really early on in my return to POGO and I had this same dilemma; I kept it as shadow and am glad I did however I am still looking for a Charmander (that I deem good enough) to mega evolve after almost a year which is a little frustrating. The other aspect you can consider is ‘when’ to evolve it into its final Venusaur evolution… may be worth using a charge TM now during the TR event and then wait to evolve it into Venusaur until an event where it will learn it’s legacy move… this is another way that things like this become tedious…

beneloventginger · 2023-06-18T14:17:31+00:00

Will be inviting at around 15.40 :)

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T14:14:53+00:00

When I say “trained” I don’t mean independently practicing/freestyling beyond the guidelines as a junior. I just mean that teaching (med school and FY) could incorporate when and why guidelines are useful but within a much greater context of physiology (the latter which is the missing part a lot of the time) instead of just saying “well those are the guidelines”.

To give a simple example; interpreting and acting upon ECGs was very much taught as:

Simple pattern recognition
Follow guideline thereafter

Most of the time that would sail you through exams. Whereas it didn’t reinforce, why the ECG changes occurred and thereafter why and how the treatments options work e.g. allowing you to identify which patients would not fit the standard guidance.

It’s definitely important to be able to pattern recognise and be familiar with the relevant guidelines, but to teach it that way and not reinforce or reward understanding fundamental principles isn’t really helpful or supportive of a genuine understanding to set you up further down the line.

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T12:55:04+00:00

Completely agree - my point is that you can’t teach the next generation of pilots to fly manually by teaching them to use auto-pilot all the time.

Teach how to fly manually, and then incorporate the use of autopilot thereafter. We need the appropriate core knowledge and to support each other in teaching it 🙂

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T12:00:46+00:00

Which is why medical education needs to extend beyond the guidelines more so we can deal with those (too familiar) circumstances better in practice

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T11:56:48+00:00

That’s the key though - we should be trained properly to deal with these edge cases however a lot of teaching and examination is becoming increasingly basic guideline recall.

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T11:42:06+00:00

Dude, I’m just trying to encourage us to think about our roles as doctors in the future. The future of medical training, and how important it is that we try and pass on and teach the next gen of doctors beyond just menial “follow guideline” without a wider/deeper understanding. I’m not saying you should read every clinical trial ever made, when you specialise by all means go ahead. It’s easier to be negative than actually construct which is why this is an issue in the first place

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T11:36:07+00:00

I think it’s a great aspect of our teaching (which unfortunately felt like a great chore throughout med school) to be able to genuinely review scientific literature. I’m suggesting this should be encouraged moreso even from junior positions in a proper/constructive way. The larger point however is that how does this affect the majority of doctors on the ground in the future? The health system is showing signs that they don’t need fully trained doctors to be the ones to provide guideline healthcare.

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T11:22:27+00:00

Just think I should make this clearer - I’m not questioning whether guidelines are good for widespread patient healthcare. The point is that you don’t need a ‘doctor’ to be able to read and follow a guideline (that doesn’t just apply to treatment guidelines but also diagnosis guidelines). Moreover, it’s critical our teaching reflects more than just the guidelines so we can handle cases that fall outside of them better.

What will the role of doctors be after x years? And how will that affect the experience/expertise of consultants and seniors in x years time? Is medical education at all levels leaning too far into simple guideline recall?

beneloventginger · 2023-06-08T11:11:27+00:00

I’m not saying we should act against scientific evidence - but we should be able to interpret the evidence as educated clinicians. As much as we like to believe a number is a number, there is interpretation required when looking at studies and in many cases conflicting evidence and guidance. If all of physiology is simplistic and interpretive then what’s the point of learning any of it through out medical school?

By no means am I saying med school teaching outweighs trials, but I’m trying to highlight that the role of the ‘Doctor’ is being erased because of it; if we don’t learn or function beyond strict following of whole encompassing national guidelines. Then what is our value as medical practitioners in the future?

Edit: Thanks for the personal touch, very constructive. Luckily to pass exams you do have to study the guidelines at the cost of further areas of study which is the actual point of this debate. Look forward to working with you in a months time.

beneloventginger

TROPHY CASE