HAPPY MATCH DAY, Y’ALL

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Cute Components of Blood

These prints can be found here :) 

Damn, they’re cute. 

This is so cute I can hardly stand it :) 

Okay so, where I live (Canada, Newfoundland) we have the smallest ponies.

And the biggest dogs

Here’s a size comparison for the Newfoundland dog 

and together

That is a full grown dog and pony together LOOK AT THAT! Now if you don’t think that’s the greatest shit ever I don’t know what is!

We might have misunderstood Hogwarts Houses for years

I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.

The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.

Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.

So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.

“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.

Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.

Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.

Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.

So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe. 

that’s much more interesting and substantive than “brave, smart, evil, miscellaneous”

Emergency Room Night Shift Gothic

Gothic of the Medical Student

Pure freakin’ gold.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think a significant part of career planning and goal setting in medicine is developing the ability to acknowledge that you can have an interest in many things (which is a good thing, it keeps you keen and motivated) but you become conscious of the fact that that doesn’t necessarily mean you want to/can/should aim for a career in that area, if you know what I mean? And that realisation that you now have an idea of where you want your career to go is what ends up motivating you once you get past that initial ‘everything in medicine is exciting’ phase. At the beginning of med school/clinics, you think to yourself “woah, I’m interested in so many things - neuro, cardio, infectious diseases, general surgery, anaesthetics - I wish there was a path that would combine everything!” and yeah there are generalists and all that but (at least personally) sometimes you think about it all and you realise that there are aspects of medicine that you are happy to keep as just a ‘personal interest’, and others which you just can’t let go of. For example, I am fairly committed to paeds (I mean, I haven’t graduated yet but I’m 99% certain I want to work in paeds) but I also have special interests in psychiatry and anaesthetics/intensive care medicine - but over the years I’ve come to realise that just because I’m particularly interested in it does not mean I’m now ‘destined’ to be a psychiatrist or an anaesthetist, nor do I think an academic interest in neurological research would make me a good neurologist. When it comes down to it, even the basic divisions like medicine/surgery/GP can feel confusing when you’re 95% set on medical but have a lingering interest in ENT or neurosurgery - and I’ve talked to a couple different people who have interpreted this lingering interest as a sign that they need to somehow combine all their interests into one impossible career. When you’re younger and in school it feels like you have so many routes and can keep up with every single little thing you’re interested in, and everything seems so pressured, when in reality I think the path is a little clearer than some people would have us believe? As intelligent, curious people, it’s only natural to feel keen on learning about so many different things, but I think we all have to recognise that not everything is a 'sign’ - sometimes you are just interested in interesting things.

I totally agree! I find psychology and psychiatric disorders fascinating, so much so that i’m intercalating in clinical psychology next year, but i know that it is not the area i want to work in. I’m also good at haematology, something about it just clicked with me and i enjoyed it, but again i don’t think being a haematologist would suit me. A consultant told me once to look at the life of a consultant in a specialty and if that’s what you can see yourself doing, and not to base your decision on only whether you find it interesting. doing placements in what you are interested in can confirm it for you, but it’s just as important to rule things out. my friend is set on paeds, thought she wanted to do neonates but has just finished 6 weeks there and has realised it’s not for her, because although it’s interesting, she doesn’t want to be doing that for the rest of her life, if you try and combine too many things, i think you would lose the enjoyment by stretching yourself. although further down the line, you can always subspecialise in things, or continue your academic interest outside of the hospital

Exactly my struggle right now. I like every rotation I had so far: IM, Pedia, Anesthesia, Derma, OB-Gyn, Psychiatry. Just so many paths to choose from! I don’t know where to go! 😭😭😭

Story of my life, it's so hard to figure out!

Researchers Identify Intriguing Links Between Sleep, Cognition and Schizophrenia

More than 3.2 million Americans suffer from schizophrenia; about 100,000 people are newly diagnosed every year. The disease includes a wide range of symptoms including visual and auditory hallucinations, cognitive problems and motivational issues. A key issue with the disease, and one that gets less attention than other symptoms, is cognitive problems. Many with the disease have trouble with learning and memory. For many, this is the first sign of the disease.

A new study by researchers at the (UM SOM) has found intriguing links between sleep, cognition and a compound called kynurenine. These links could illuminate the mechanism that causes cognitive problems among those with the disease, and could point the way to new treatments to reduce some of the disease’s symptoms.

The findings were published in the journal Sleep. The study is the first to illuminate in detail the links between kynurenine, its metabolite kynurenic acid, sleep and cognition.

“No one has looked closely at the relationship between sleep and the kynurenine pathway before,” said Ana Pocivavsek, PhD, a researcher at the UM SOM Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC) and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry. “This research establishes a clear link between elevations in kynurenine and sleep problems.”

In recent years, scientists have identified kynurenic acid as a potential key player in schizophrenia. Kynurenic acid is a neuroactive metabolite of kynurenine that is formed in the brain. People with schizophrenia have higher than normal levels of kynurenic acid in their brains. Scientists have theorized that these elevated levels might be connected with a range of symptoms seen in the disease, including problems with learning and memory.

The mechanisms underlying the cognitive impairments in patients, however, have remained unclear. Dr. Pocivavsek and her colleagues suspected that an interplay between elevated kynurenic acid and sleep could play a role. There is a lot of evidence in both humans and animals that sleep dysfunction leads to problems with learning and memory. In addition, researchers and clinicians have long noted that people with schizophrenia often have problems with sleep as well.

For these experiments, she and her colleagues studied rats. They made comparisons in the behavior of rats with increased kynurenic acid in their brains to animals with normal levels of the compound. They connected the animals’ brains to a device that measured the amount and quality of sleep, and found that the animals with higher levels of kynurenic acid had significantly less rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. This is the sleep phase in which dreams occur, and it is thought to be critical for the consolidation of previous learning.

The researchers found that the group with high kynurenic acid also had problems with learning. To test this, they place rats in a box and shine light into the box. On one side of the box there is an opening into a darker area. Rats are nocturnal animals, and prefer the dark, so the animals typically run to the dark area. Once in this area, they receive a small electric shock. When the experiment is repeated the next day, normal animals do not run to the darker area, remembering the shock from the day before. By comparison, animals with increased levels of high kynurenic acid, and thus impaired sleep, do not remember the shock from the day before, and run into the dark area. In other words they did not learn from the previous day’s experience.

“What we’re starting to think about is that kynurenic acid disrupts sleep, which then disrupts cognition,” she said. However, there are other possibilities, she says: it may be that disruptions in sleep cause increased kynurenic acid, which then leads to cognitive problems. “It’s not clear which happens first,” she says. “That is a really interesting question, and one that we are investigating.”

Dr. Pocivavsek and other researchers theorize that reducing kynurenic acid could reduce problems with sleep and cognition in patients with schizophrenia. “We certainly believe that high levels of kynurenic acid are a crucial aspect of schizophrenia,” she says.

The research provides more reason to develop medicines that reduce kynurenic acid levels in the brain. One key possibility is to inhibit an enzyme called kynurenine aminotransferase II, or KAT II, which converts kynurenine to kynurenic acid. Using compounds that inhibit this enzyme, researchers have been able to reduce the amount of kynurenic acid in the brain. Over the years, various pharmaceutical companies have worked to develop inhibitors of KAT II that can reach the brain, and would be safe and effective in humans. Dr. Pocivavsek’s  research provides evidence that this approach has clinical potential.

“This study adds to the evidence that high levels of kynurenic acid contribute to cognitive dysfunction,” she says. “If we can come up with ways to reduce those levels, we may be able to reduce these symptoms for patients.”

Dr. Pocivavsek collaborated on the research with Jessica A. Mong, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology, who has previously done research on cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying sleep and arousal states. Research assistants Annalisa Baratta and Shaun Viechweg also contributed to the study.

“Schizophrenia not only affects patients, but their families as well. It is an extremely difficult disease, and this innovative work by Dr. Pocivavsek and her colleagues offers hope that in the future we can develop new approaches to some of the most pernicious symptoms,” said UM SOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, who is also the vice president for Medical Affairs, University of Maryland, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor. “Once again we see the unbreakable link between basic research and helping patients.”

I keep taking Med quizzes

And ending up with Pathology as a speciality!

What do they even do??

@perfectionmd​ @foreverfitastic​ They do a lot more than autopsies! That's only a tiny part of pathology :) Generally speaking, pathology is broken up into anatomic and clinical pathology. 

Anatomic pathology includes not only autopsies but surgical pathology as well. In surgical pathology you examine resected tissue/biopsies. They also do frozen sections, which is where a surgical specimen is taken from a patient in the OR, sent to the path lab, and frozen and examined under the microscope, all while the patient is asleep on the table. You have twenty minutes to get the sample prepped and looked at to tell the surgeon in the OR if the sample is normal or is diseased (i.e. cancer)! You have to have a really good understanding of what normal tissue looks like to determine the presence of disease. This is really difficult and takes a lot of time for path residents to learn. In fact, they often do a fellowship in a specific area, such as derm or breast pathology. 

Clinical pathology encompasses chemical pathology, transfusion medicine, microbiology, and molecular pathology (think genetic testing-sequencing, microarrays, FISH, karyotypes). A lot of pathologists do research as well. It’s a really cool field if this is the sort of thing you enjoy. I’m sure there’s even more as I’m sharing what I was exposed to on my path rotation. Set up a path elective during your M3 year!

i saw this post earlier about therapists and it reminded me of my old therapist paul, who in my opinion is one of the greatest men alive and who did not put up with my bullshit for even one second

anyway i go in to see paul one week in the summer of 2016, and i’m doing my usual bullshit which consists of me talking shit about myself, and paul is staring at me, and then he cuts me off and says that he’s got a new tool for helping people recognize when they’re using negative language, and gets up and goes over to his desk

and i’m like alright hit me with that sweet sweet self-help article my man, because i’m a linguistic learner and whenever paul’s like here i have a tool for you to use it’s pretty much always an article or a book or something

paul opens a drawer, takes something out, and turns back around. i stare.

i say, paul.

is that a nerf gun.

yeah, says paul.

i say, are you gonna shoot me with a nerf gun in this professional setting.

he happily informs me that that’s really up to me, isn’t it. and sits back down. and gestures, like, go ahead, what were you saying?

and i squint suspiciously and start back up about how i’m having too much anxiety to leave the house to run errands, like it was a miracle to even get here, like i’ve forgone getting groceries for the past week and that’s so stupid, what a stupid issue, i’m an idiot, how could i–

a foam dart hits me in the leg.

i go, hey! because my therapist just shot me in the leg. paul blinks at me placidly and raises an eyebrow. i squint again.

i say, slowly, it’s– not a stupid issue, i’m not stupid, but it’s frustrating me and i don’t want it to be a problem i’m having.

no dart this time. okay. sweet.

so the rest of the hour passes with me intermittently getting nailed with tiny foam darts and then swearing and then fixing my language and, wouldn’t you know it, i start liking myself a little more by the end of the session, which is mildly infuriating because paul can tell and he’s very smug about it 

anyway i leave his office and the lady having the next appointment walks in and i hear what’s all over the floor? and paul very seriously says cognitive behavioral therapy tools.

She should have a statue. Not those confederate MFs.