Paleo Diet - Heart Health Success Story!

          Heart disease runs in my father's side of the family.  My grandfather has had a heart attack or two, and it seems all the males in that lineage have high cholesterol.  I probably wouldn't like my numbers, but I'm too busy refusing doctors attempts to check.

          However, there is some good news.  My father, after being put on a statin a few years ago, finally decided to come around and give my wacky Paleo/Track Your Plaque diet ideas a shot.  It took some tweaking and more than a few long phone calls, but he has had a pretty good handle on the diet for the last few months.

Education Bubble???

          I thought this was an interesting article that dealt with some ideas I have been toying with lately.  It in part deals with the idea of there being an education bubble in our country.  I'm sure many of you have heard the phrase or even joked to others that a college degree is the new high school degree (thus making a masters or higher degree the new college degree).  While we may joke about it, I tend to think that's actually becoming a reality.

          This evidence is definitely anecdotal, but a lot of the kids that went to my high school and went on to get a college degree are currently unemployed or at jobs you would consider to be far below their educational level (ex cashier at Borders with no other plans on the horizon).  Many of them are going back to school for masters degrees they don't particularly need or want.  Friends of mine have confirmed seeing similar results in their acquaintances.

Reflecting on the New iPad

          The new iPad has been here for a while now, so maybe this review is a little old.  I got mine on the first day of deliveries.  It arrived early, at 10 AM, but when the doorbell rang, I knew it could be nothing else.  I was still asleep (no, I wasn't working that Friday, and yes, I have been a bit of a bum this year), but I was so excited I lept out of bed and answered the door in my boxers.

          Yes, that happened.  The mail guy was actually pretty cool about it.

It's Here

          As I mentioned way back in this post, I have to determined, without any question, that I not only want an iPad... I need an iPad.

          Sure.  Maybe my reasoning was a little thin.  Maybe I made a few leaps of logic in a rather difficult attempt to justify a near $1000 luxury purchase... but I think I still managed to get there.  It's worth it.  I think.  Humor aside though, I do think I can make a convincing argument that an iPad will be very helpful in medical school.  I'm just not quite sure if it's a 700 dollar argument.

Robot Doctors In Our Future?

Awesome, or scary?  Your call.

          I just read this article, concerned with the possibility of doctors one day being replaced by robots.  I thought it was very interesting.  I am a bit of a technophile, and the thought of an iRobot style world, with robots to help us with all the different aspects of our lives literally makes me giddy.  Seriously... how cool would that be?

          So I was reading about iRobot (a robotics company, not the movie this time) and how they have put a 6 million dollar investment into the healthcare company InTouch Health.  iRobot recently developed Ava, a robot with a tablet (Android or Apple or whatever) for a head and a robots body.  They are hoping that this robot, the first step along the way towards personal robots, would be able to be used in a healthcare setting in the near future.  This could be something simple, such as following doctors to help them manage patients' information or vitals or whatever, to something more complex such as educating patients about their disease when other healthcare professionals are occupied.  I thought this was really cool!

Peyton

          Although it's been a long time in coming, Peyton Manning was officially released from the Colts today.  The press conference and his farewell speech were heartbreaking, upsetting enough that I can't actually recommend anyone watch it.   His voice was hoarse, and he was close to tears through the whole thing.  He was a stand up guy, though, and I really hope he does well on whatever team he ends up with in the next few weeks (hopefully not the Broncos or the Chiefs, two Raiders rivals that are apparently in the hunt).

Application Update - Two More Interviews

It's all about finding your fit.

          In the last month, I had two more interviews.  These were an interesting set, because they closely followed each other, and my feelings toward them were so different.

          Part of what has been interesting about this whole process is going to different schools and seeing what does and doesn't work for me.  Honestly, my way of thinking about schools has undergone a massive evolution over the course of this application cycle.  Now, I usually don't even bother asking about the things that were important to me at the first school or two I interviewed at, while I have discovered that a couple other key questions - that I originally never put much thought into - are extremely important.