Air Force Med Student

Push Ups: Week 2

afmedstudent — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:10:07 +0000

This week was harder, and I ended up failing the max set today by only doing 17 reps when the goal was 20 or more. My maxes for this week were 19, 17 and 17. I’ll be repeating week 2 next week in the hopes of reaching the goal next Friday. We’ll see.

JSGMESB Application Deadline is this Friday!

afmedstudent — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:26:38 +0000

For all the AF HPSP people, 04 September is the deadline for your military match paperwork. Mail it of soon.

Push Ups: Week 1

afmedstudent — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:56:04 +0000

I’ve finished the first week of the “One Hundred Push Ups” program, and it was tough today. Last Saturday I tested my max and did 19 push ups, which meant I’m using the third column in the workout table. My maxes this week were 15, 12, and 12 for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today’s goal was actually 13, so I’m already falling behind. I’m still doing my normal workouts during the week, but I’m trying to cut back on chest and shoulders so I can dedicate more energy to this program.

I really like using the Push Ups Logger to record my progress. Hopefully next week will be better.

ADT Tip of the Day: Buy the ABU

afmedstudent — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:21:46 +0000

ABU

If you’re an HPSP medical student in the Air Force, and you attended Commissioned Officer Training in the summer of 2006 or 2007 (current MSIIIs and MSIVs), then you probably own a couple sets of BDUs. What was told to our COT class was that we were the last group to have to purchase the old uniforms, and that future classes would be buying the new ABUs. If you’re like me, you spent a non-trivial amount of time each night at COT ironing your uniforms and shining your boots. Unless you enjoyed that experience and think that you’ll have nothing better to do with your time during your audition rotations, I recommend upgrading to the ABU.

The ABU is designed to be washed and worn right out of the dryer. It’s permanent press, so they actually tell you not to iron or dry clean the uniform or you could mess it up. And you don’t have to shine the new green suede boots. This allows you to focus on performing well for your attendings instead of wasting time on busy work each night. I’m on my second military rotation, and can’t imagine having to worry about that stuff.

One Hundred Push Ups?

afmedstudent — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:53:09 +0000

I ran across a web site called “One Hundred Push Ups” which gives you a program to increase the number of push ups you can do. It’s 6 weeks long with 3 workouts per week. I’m starting the program next Monday we’ll see how it goes.

The Separate Osteopathic Medical Education Pathway: Isn’t It Time We Got Our Acts Together?

afmedstudent — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:32:34 +0000

Here’s a great piece by Dr. Jordan Cohen, a medical school professor at George Washington University, about the current artificial separation of medicine into “osteopathic” and “allopathic” divisions. Below is a copy of the text, as well as a link to the original article. Let me know what you all think.

Andrew Taylor Still, believing that human ailments were rooted in musculoskeletal dysfunction, opened the first school of osteopathic medicine in 1892. He elected to award graduates of his new school not the MD degree but, instead, a distinctive accolade: doctor of osteopathy. This decision led to a distinctly separate medical profession, one that was looked upon by the allopathic medical establishment with disdain. Had osteopathy remained slavishly obedient to Still’s quaint views of human biology, such disdain might be understandable. But it has evolved, just as allopathic medicine has, in response to the revolutionary scientific and technological advances that have occurred over the last several decades. As a consequence, today’s osteopathic medical profession looks an awful lot like its erstwhile rival.

Take, for example, osteopathic medical schools. The accreditation standards and the curricula of DO schools closely resemble those of MD schools. Indeed, in terms of curriculum, the single noteworthy exception is the time devoted to osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM), reflecting a lingering belief among many osteopathic physicians that OMM is efficacious in some circumstances (as it may well be).

To be sure, the pedagogical model characteristic of DO schools, in contrast to their curricular content, differs in several respects from that employed by most MD schools. Osteopathic medical schools, in general, employ fewer faculty, conduct less research, and rely more heavily on community-based practitioners to implement the clinical portions of the curriculum. These differences, while characteristic, are not absolute. If the nation’s 152 Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME)- and American Osteopathic Association-accredited medical schools were arrayed on a spectrum from most research intensive at one end to most community based at the other, at no point could one draw a bright line to separate the institutions into two discrete groups. As a reflection of this overlap, the applicant pools from which entrants to MD and DO schools are selected contain a great many of the same students.

Those who wish to sustain the historic dichotomy between these two increasingly convergent medical professions point to the osteopathic profession’s avowed commitment to primary care and to patient-centered, holistic care. To my mind, this is a distinction without a difference. After all, the calls for more attention to primary care and to patient-centeredness are as loud in the halls of allopathic medicine as anywhere. Moreover, despite the rhetoric, more and more DO graduates, just like MD graduates, are electing to pursue non-primary-care residencies. In addition, the dwindling number of accredited osteopathic residencies available, coupled with the superabundance of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited positions, means that the majority of DO graduates are now completing their medical education in allopathic training programs.

What, then, is the benefit of sustaining two separate educational pathways? Certainly not the notion that these two pathways are necessary to maintain heterogeneity and avoid a monolithic approach to the preparation of future physicians. That notion would imply that all allopathic and all osteopathic schools adhere, respectively, to separate and distinct educational paradigms. Nothing could be further from the truth, as noted above. Indeed, in recognition of the importance of adapting to changing realities of medical practice and, hence, of the need to embrace novel educational arrangements, LCME standards have for a long time not only permitted, but indeed encouraged, innovation. Working within those standards, the 130 MD schools currently in operation have developed a multiplicity of successful educational models, all of which pass muster by the accreditors. The same is undoubtedly true of the 28 accredited DO schools, including three branch campuses. And yet, despite the multiplicity of existing approaches, we all recognize that a great deal more innovation is needed if we are going to prepare future physicians adequately for the unprecedented challenges they will face in our rapidly changing health care system.

Those interested in finding more effective and efficient ways to educate future physicians to meet those challenges need, above all, to look outside the box. In doing so, they would do well to eschew outmoded stereotypic prejudices about osteopathic medicine and look objectively at the pluses and minuses of its educational model. Rather than remaining disengaged from our academic counterparts in schools of osteopathic medicine and sustaining separate educational pathways, a more certain path to improving the education of all our students would be to break down the remaining barriers and learn as much as we can from each other. Whatever benefits learners derive from the osteopathic educational pathway should be showered on all medical students, and vice versa. Isn’t it about time we got our acts together?

Jordan J. Cohen, MD

Ninja Psychiatrist

afmedstudent — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:35:28 +0000

I’m still looking for a residency program that includes ninja training.

Last Place Comics

Facebook Connect Not Working Right On Digg

afmedstudent — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:54:04 +0000

Digg menu bar

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I’m not sure how many others are having this problem, but Facebook Connect doesn’t seem to be working with Digg. Right now you have the option of logging in with either a Digg user account or using your Facebook credentials. When I choose the Facebook option, the page loads briefly with my profile, then reloads with the regular logged-out page. I’m using Firefox (updated to 3.5, not sure if that’s the issue), and can reproduce the problem consistently. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m currently logged in to Facebook or not. I have not had this issue using Google Chrome, but I prefer Firefox and would love for it to work right. Anyone else having the same issue?

What Happened to Air and Space Power?

afmedstudent — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:24:50 +0000

I’m just curious if anyone knows what happened to the AF site that usually posts the Air and Space Power journal. I’ve got a link to them on the right-hand side of the blog, but the site has been down for several weeks. I’ve googled the name, but have only found either my original link or links from other sites of old archived issues. Is the journal going away? So far I havn’t been able to find any answers.

* UPDATE: And we’re back! The links to the journal are working again. It’s still unclear why they were down, but the Summer 09 issue is up for those interested.

Kraplan QBank Part 4

afmedstudent — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:22:11 +0000

As I am less than a week away from the Surgery shelf I am finding myself less in the mood to deal with Kaplan’s inadequacies. Here is a gem from a recent QBank session:

QBank answer related to colle’s fracture.

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Break yourself, fool!

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Break yourself, fool!

Sounds pretty good, right? I wanted to double check with First Aid for the Surgery Clerkship, and low and behold, they state that a short arm cast for 4 – 6 weeks is the appropriate treatment. A triple check with UpToDate confirmed what FA said, although they elaborated that for large displacements in the acute setting, a splint was more appropriate, with later transition to a short arm cast.

You almost fooled me that time, Kaplan! Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll try again, and who knows, maybe next time you’ll get lucky.