medgremlin

@medgremlin@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clever, clever⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Generational AI like ChatGPT is absolutely useless for anything besides maybe making summaries. Humans use language as a default method of communication, and if you are trying to produce academic work, the onus is on you to learn how to use language effectively. These heaps of algorithms and marketing exclusively hallucinate and plagiarize, both of which are absolutely unacceptable in academia (and should be unacceptable in society at large, in my opinion.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clever, clever⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Tell me you haven’t reviewed classmates’ papers without telling me you haven’t reviewed classmates’ papers.

  Some of the papers I’ve read from my classmates make me wonder how they got out of high school, let alone into university or (!!) medical school. There are a lot of people who cannot write decently to save their lives that are still somehow in academia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought the point was to be better than Hamas? Of course they mistreat detainees, but that doesn’t mean Israel gets a blank check to do the same. Also, many of the Palestinians currently being held by Israel without charges in indefinite detention are innocent civilians, including many from the West Bank. Israel has been illegally detaining and mistreating thousands upon thousands of Palestinians without any kind of due process or concern for human rights for decades. Pointing a finger at Hamas and saying “Look! They’re doing it too!! October 7th!!1!!” is not a valid argument for how Israel has been treating captive Palestinians for years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The way that Hamas treats Palestinians is partially the responsibility of Netanyahu and the Likud given that they provided Hamas with material support to take power in the first place. Also, the fact that Israelis stormed an IDF base in protest of the punishment of IDF thugs that anally raped innocent Palestinians to death with rifles tells me a lot about what Israel thinks of all Palestinians, not just the ones that are actually part of Hamas.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tough Shit⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I just finished my surgery rotation for medical school and I saw so many colonoscopies. I have seen the inside of dozens of people’s colons and this is a pretty good explanation for what’s going on. I could also tell which patients ate a lot of fruit or seeds because there would still be some residual seeds in there after the clean-out prep.

  Pro tip: if you are going in for a colonoscopy, ask for the pill form of the prep. Most insurances cover it, it works better, and you don’t have to drink the gallon of disgusting fluid.

  Also! Colonoscopies are very important! They are the single best tool for detecting and preventing colon cancer. During the scope, if they find any polyps, they get removed and sent for evaluation to see if they are cancerous, pre-cancerous, or benign, and the polyps are basically the seeds of colon cancer. It is recommended to get your first colonoscopy at age 45, unless you have a family history of colon cancer, in which case you would get your first one 10 years younger than the age the family member was diagnosed, or age 45, whichever is younger.

  There are the home tests like the cologuard, but that has a 45% false positive rate, and they’re only good for 3 years while a colonoscopy is good for 10 years(*) if it comes back normal, so the cologuard ends up being more expensive in the long run. It also only detects the later, more advanced polyps that are more likely to be closer to being cancer, and if it comes back positive, you have to get a colonoscopy anyways. A lot of the false positives come from the fact that it tests for DNA associated with cancer mutations and for microscopic blood in the stool, and they don’t tell you if it’s positive because of the DNA or the blood, and you can have microscopic amounts of blood in your stool for tons of reasons.

  TL;DR: Colonoscopies are very important, and MUCH better than the home test. Talk to your primary care provider about when you should start screening, and if you’re over 45, go get scheduled for one now. Colon cancer is a horrible disease, and it’s actually quite preventable and easy to catch in the early stages, if you get your colonoscopies on the recommended schedule.

  *Addendum: If your colonoscopy detects certain kinds of polyps, or more than a certain number of polyps, you might be on a shorter interval for surveillance scopes to make sure they catch anything before it becomes cancer, and that interval can be anywhere from 3 to 7 years depending on what they found. Also, if you have a family history of colon or rectal cancer, you’ll be on a 5 year schedule because you’re higher risk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrors We've Unleashed⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Many species of mosquitos are reliant on blood for reproduction. The females utilize a “blood meal” for the nutrients for laying eggs to be fertilized. Additionally, it is the female mosquito bite that transmits diseases like malaria.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A courts reporter wrote about a few trials. Then an AI decided he was actually the culprit.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Which is why, in many cases, there should be liability assigned. If a self-driving car kills someone, the programming of the car is at least partially to blame, and the company that made it should be liable for the wrongful death suit, and probably for criminal charges as well. Citizens United already determined that corporations are people…now we just need to put a corporation in prison for their crimes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the output to Microsoft for AI energy demands.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  There is talk about lifting the restrictions on fuel recycling, so that problem (which isn’t as big an issue as folks make it out to be) has the potential to be solved.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the other part of it is that something like a full colonoscopy is a lot safer if the patient isn’t moving at all given that one of the biggest and most serious risks is poking a hole through the colon with the camera.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That sounds more like a waking sedation. Those will get used in American medicine if it’s just a sigmoidoscopy (the last bit of the rectum and colon), but for a full colonoscopy, they really prefer to conk you out a bit more than that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The ones I observed with my attending physician were using twilight sedation with propofol, and I think they got small doses of fentanyl to manage discomfort/pain during and right after the procedure. The propofol lets them knock you out for a while without putting you under so much that they have to intubate. (That is anesthesia’s job though, so it might be recorded differently on your records)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The ones I observed with my attending physician were using twilight sedation with propofol, and I think they got small doses of fentanyl to manage discomfort/pain during and right after the procedure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not if they did the bowel prep well enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Karaoke place⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s usually propofol.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thanks to science, men can now locate the clitoris with micrometer accuracy.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Context for people unfamiliar: this is a video-assisted intubation. The white bit on the screen is the larynx (vocal cords), and the fold below it is the opening of the esophagus.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thanks to science, men can now locate the clitoris with micrometer accuracy.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The little white ring is a larynx. This is a video-assisted intubation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Post upvotes are like github stars⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s why it’s a disagreement. I’m not necessarily saying their opinions are factually incorrect, just that they are devoid of empathy, morally reprehensible, and antithetical to the teachings of the religious figure that they are statistically likely to claim to be faithful to. A lack of empathy should not be rewarded.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Post upvotes are like github stars⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Typically, the things I disagree with are the things like bad faith arguments, lies, rudeness, or bigoted ideals that purport that not all humans deserve equal rights, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Post upvotes are like github stars⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually, when I disagree with something, it is because it is incorrect, lying, or particularly mean-spirited. I disagree with people that do not think that every human deserves the same rights. I disagree with people that push for ideologies that would strip other humans of their rights, or that would inflict needless suffering. I don’t downvote people when I disagree with what media they think is good or something. I downvote those that express ideas that are antithetical to what I see as basic human decency or that are factually incorrect.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Post upvotes are like github stars⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally, I use downvotes to say “I disagree with this and/or it is a stupid/bad/bigoted/etc take, but I do not wish to spend the time and effort to respond and get dragged into a text-based mudfight with someone who is unlikely to speak to me politely, no matter how polite I try to be in my rebuttal.”

  I like having a way to say “no, bad, stop that” without having to spend time trying to explain things or engage with someone who I think is beyond convincing anyways.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is what it is⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oof. Tell me about it. I went to a Gen pop hospital after working in a level 1 peds ER and the other ER folks gave me “the look” when I talked about some of the stuff at the peds hospital. Non-accidental trauma cases are a special kind of PTSD.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wearables linked to ‘pathologic’ heart disease symptom monitoring⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Tachycardia” is a sign. “Palpitations” or “heart racing” are symptoms. Signs are the objective things that can be measured and recorded as hard data. Symptoms are what the patient reports feeling that are not measurable. In taking a history and physical, the symptoms tell the physician what signs to look for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there anything else in that head of yours? Do you have space in your mind alongside this vitriol for anything that makes life worth living? Family? Friends? Hobbies? What things do you find to be positive or wholesome in your perspective? I’d genuinely like to hear what your ideas and beliefs are beyond the topic of Gaza.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Remember guys: The frenulum is just for friends.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s variable, but some people have one where the upper lip connects to the gums and another one for the bottom lip. So an AMAB can have up to 4 of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If everyone is fired by AI, who's going to buy the products and services made by the companies if no one has money anymore?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And as long as CPR machines are obscenely expensive and difficult to obtain and maintain for a lot of smaller hospitals and EMS systems.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If everyone is fired by AI, who's going to buy the products and services made by the companies if no one has money anymore?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s the problem with that: it relies on things like the LUCAS CPR assist machine which doesn’t fit on a lot of people. I’ve done CPR on a lot of people, and only a handful of them would have even fit in a LUCAS in the first place.

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• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mean world syndrome has reacted a fever pitch.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How does “being able to handle yourself” apply when someone else has removed your ability to handle yourself with drugs or alcohol? How does it apply when your choices are “go along with it and try to escape later” or “fight back and probably lose because you have less muscle mass and are physically smaller than them”?

  How does your argument apply when you are a teenage girl in high school being harassed by adult men? Reality is a very different place when the world perceives you as a woman (or girl), and your prescriptivist approach entirely fails to account for the fact that your perspective has a lot of blind spots in it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Response to Nature's "Google AI has better bedside manner than human doctors — and makes better diagnoses"⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m a second year medical student, and those boomer doctors are what I will avoid being at any cost. I currently spend a fair amount of time and effort challenging some of my professors and classmates on their attitudes and assumptions regarding health needs and healthcare discrepancies for racial minorities, low SES patients, and LGBTQ+ patients.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Waymo arson in San Francisco sparks new debate on self-driving cars⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The failure of the programmers to account for this kind of situation just speaks to their complete obliviousness and lack of understanding of other people. It’s not terribly different from the problem of voice recognition software working best with male voices in a west-coat American accent because that is the entire sample set of people used to train it in the beginning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reason I'm Fat #614⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I developed my own recipe for peanut butter cookies, and all of the ingredient measurements are predicated around using an entire jar of peanut butter because I refuse to measure out peanut butter. The downside is that this results in 120-200 cookies depending on how big I make them and it takes a while to get all of them through the oven.