Well it’s another New Year’s Eve spent at home except this time I’m jumping between Counter-Strike Source and First Aid USMLE Step I. In retrospect, 2009 was an incredibly unusual year because of the amount of free time I had. Once school started, I quickly become occupied with trying to get back into the swing […]

In the mobile industry, access to an “app store” has become the hallmark of any modern smartphone; however I’ve never understood how one can assess the quality of one app store over another by sheer volume. Apple’s App Store has well over 100,000 apps (with over two billion downloads), yet many of them are redundant […]

So between watching King James and company destroy the Lakers in Los Angeles, reading some First Aid, and watching Rain Man for the millionth time (in honor of the late Kim Peek), Christmas was pretty uneventful. In fact, with each passing year, holidays seem to mean less and less. Many of my classmates finally had […]

Genome wide association studies are extremely useful in trying to assess which genes are responsible for conditions caused by complex or unknown patterns. In a nutshell, hundreds of people with a particular condition (in this case, asthma) have their genomes compared. Researchers are looking for certain mutations/patterns like single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which are prevalent […]

Cystic fibrosis and α1-antitrypsin deficiency are the two most common inherited lung diseases, and both of them happen to be caused by a known, single gene mutation. A study conducted at Boston University’s School of Medicine and recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation describes a protocol in which gene therapy was used to treat emphysema […]

There are horror stories of medical students studying 8-10 hours per day, having no social life, and having to sacrifice their sanity just to keep up with the volume of material we’re held accountable for. I’m here to say that those rumors are pure nonsense.

One of the main points emphasized in the management electives I’ve taken is the concept of healthcare costs vs. GDP/inflation. It doesn’t matter how much we try to lower the cost of healthcare – if the rate of healthcare expenditure increases faster than the GDP, it won’t be long before 20, 30, or even 50% […]

Probably the world’s most famous savant, Kim Peek, a confounding mixture of brilliance and disability, has sadly passed away at age 58. Most of us have either heard about him with respect to the hit movie Rain Man or in one of his exhibitions of jaw-dropping knowledge retention and recall (as shown below). His story, […]

Isn’t the world supposed to come to an end in three years or something? Why am I still in medical school? Shouldn’t I go and take in all the great things life has to offer before the earth’s expiration date?

Preventative medicine is an interesting topic to discuss especially when trying to reduce healthcare costs. At the same time, many people are trying to find cheap solutions to a.) lose weight, b.) get healthy, and c.) stay thin and healthy. Combined with an exercise regimen approved by a physician, green tea may be one of […]