August 2011
1 post
“Really, what kind of doctor you want to be comes down to one simple question: do...”
– An attending during rounds
May 2011
1 post
1 tag
January 2011
4 posts
2 tags
2 tags
What's your Zodiac sign? Ophiuchus? →
So now instead of Sagittarius, I might be Ophiuchus. I was so proud of my characteristics of a centaur. Isn’t that what Sagittarius is known for?
1 tag
Ask-Tell-Ask
I had my pediatrics clerkship for the last two months: “You made my baby cry!” “I’m sorry. I just looked at her.” “Is this your first time giving a vaccine?” “Yes.” “Great. My kid is going to cry all night now.”
“Which ear hurts?”
The little girl points to her left ear.
“This ear hurts?”
“No, this one,” she says, pointing to...
1 tag
“You know, your nose doesn’t have to be in there.”
– A resident to me as I performed my first pelvic exam on a woman. I have a bad habit of staring very closely at something when I’m really concentrating.
November 2010
1 post
WTF Has Obama Done So Far? →
October 2010
3 posts
It's the first week of my pediatrics rotation
Patient's Mother: Do all kids immediately cry when they see you?
Phillip: Yeah, it's the face. I'm working on it.
plasticbubble asked: Your stories are really well-written and funny! Do you plan on posting more parts of that story? I'd really love to read the rest of it :D
My mother wants to make sure I get the full...
Mother: Your cousin is having twins!
Phillip: Wow! Congratulations to her.
Mother: Yes.
Mother: And she's pregnant!
Phillip: I assumed as much.
September 2010
1 post
Depressed Bowels
“When was your last bowel movement?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago,” the patient said. I glanced at the initial history and physical that my intern had given me, stating that the patient had diarrhea one day prior to admission.
“I thought you had diarrhea two days ago,” I said.
“Oh yes, it was very watery. I had to run to the bathroom six or seven times that day. Explosions every time.” He clapped...
June 2010
1 post
2 tags
Stereotypes Do Matter
I take my USMLE Step 1 Boards tomorrow, so I’ve spent the last six weeks studying almost non-stop. Some things I learned that I find important:
1. Black women = sarcoids and lupus.
2. Black men = sickle cell and G6PD deficiency.
3. HIV = gay men. They are most likely bottoms who might also have anal HPV.
4. When a child comes in who you suspect is a victim of child abuse, it is not...
May 2010
6 posts
1 tag
2 tags
Cross of Gold: How the rush to crucify Goldman... →
Imagine that you want to make a bet against a sports team, say the New York Yankees. The Yankees have had a strong run, but, poring over the data, you have come to the conclusion that they’re going to start losing. So you go to a bookmaker (in a district where bookmaking is legal, of course) to place a bet. The bookmaker now looks for someone to take the other side of this bet. Once...
Creative writing classes
travors:
I’m intrigued. Why go to one? The person who teaches the class has obviously failed as a creative writer, or they wouldn’t need a job teaching a creative writing class.
I’d have to disagree. The creative writing classes I took in college were mostly taught by published authors and the MFA program was ran by an author who won the Booker Prize twice. However, “why go to...
1 tag
April 2010
2 posts
1 tag
I hope to be a doctor in the model of Goldman...
By prescribing medications that I’m betting against so that I can make the most money from patients. I also hope that whatever healthcare “regulators” that are supposed to be watching me are watching hours of porn instead.
“So there I was, holding a semi-erect penis in one hand and grasping his balls...”
– Me, describing the first male GU and prostate exam I performed on an instructor. I’m half a doctor now!
February 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Sex in Europe
Mother: Don't let your friends pressure you into having sex in Barcelona.
Phillip: I won't.
Mother: It's bad enough if you have sex in America, but those Europeans are just so sexual.
Phillip: Did you have an experience with a European man?
Mother: (Ignoring the previous comment) You might get rashes, or your back will get sore, or your teeth will fall out.
Phillip: Oh no.
Mother: Your penis will definitely fall off. I guarantee it.
“If Rudy were here, he would have plowed the streets, kicked the homeless out,...”
– Reese, telling me how Rudy Giuliani would have handled the snowstorm if he were mayor during the snowstorm that hit DC this past week.
September 2009
2 posts
Watch
Turkeys Terrorize Jersey Neighborhood
A revolt of the feathered kind is going on in Cherry Hill.
“I wanna just be able to go back to a normal life and go out of our house without worrying where a turkey might be,” lamented Nancy Giordano.
Turkeys attacking humans? Turkeys?!
Med Students are Inherently Socialist
I wish I could have watched President Obama’s speech to children so I could also be indoctrinated into the ways of socialism. Studying hard and staying in school are essential elements of the Communist Manifesto.
July 2009
2 posts
“If I ever have a daughter, I’d want to name her Condoleezza.”
– Reese.
“Obama has 30 czars. That’s more czars than Russia had.”
– Reese’s senile grandmother.
June 2009
1 post
What am I, but just a boy?
So after completing my first year of medical school, what have I really learned? I feel that this past year has been less about learning about the human body and how it works and more about the process of dehumanizing the medical student population, creating a special bond that can exist only between people who know what it’s like to go through this torture, day in and day out. It really...
April 2009
1 post
“I never breast-fed you so my breasts would stay large. That’s why...”
– My mother. Oh boy.
March 2009
5 posts
Why I Should Marry an Indian Woman
Dad: You need to marry an Indian girl.
Phillip: Why's that?
Dad: Because you're pure Indian. There aren't that many left.
Phillip: There are a billion of them.
Dad: Where?
Phillip: India.
Dad: Oh. There.
"You're wearing pink? That is so gay!"
Really? It’s gay? Does the act of wearing a pink polo somehow make it seem that I’m suddenly attracted to men? Since when has the color pink become synonymous with wanting a man’s lips all over my dick, or watching the latest installment of gay porn from Raging Stallion Studios?
This made me angry. Angrier than the time I wore a shirt with a huge rainbow on it, because...
I speak to my mother once a week and our...
Mother: I think I made a colossal mistake when you were born.
Phillip: I'm sorry I was born.
Mother: No, not that.
Mother: You should have been circumcised.
Phillip: Why?
Mother: So you would be closer to God.
Phillip: Foreskin is not the only thing separating me from God.
A night without Oscar
jhnbrssndn:
American viewers of the Academy Awards are, correct me if I’m wrong, denied the exquisite pleasure of seeing the pisspoor programming that overseas broadcasters cobble together to drop in when the US broadcast goes to an ad break. The live Oscars broadcast is handled here in the UK by my former employer Sky, an outpost of billionnaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. In...
February 2009
4 posts
Please Donate to the NYC Free Clinic →
(Please reblog this. Thanks!)
I volunteer for the New York City Free Clinic and can attest to the tremendous amount of good it does for the patients who walk through its doors. With the current economic recession, grant money and other funds are in danger of being cut and we need all the help that we can get. Our goal is to raise $20,000 by the end of March. To read more about the NYC Free Clinic...
“Med students will often say that even though they shouldn’t, they still...”
– Marisa, explaining how slacker med students study. I’m starting a cram week today.
Choke a Chicken
My name is Alex. Just Alex. There’s no last name, no middle name. I don’t even consider Alex a first name. It’s just a name, a proper noun that supposedly captures my essence in one word. If you think about it, names are a hassle to deal with. Cher realized this; she was born Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre. In 1979, Cherilyn dropped the French, Armenian, and half her first name to be known simply as...
Please excuse the interruption
Medical school has pretty much taken over my life right now, leading me to ignore tumblr for a bit. I barely have time to think, let alone write something up. I hope to return to more regular postings soon.
January 2009
3 posts
“You need to get in touch with your culture. Spend some time with your Indian...”
– The doctor I was shadowing today spoke these words to me within an hour of meeting me. I mean, seriously, do I exude my lack of Indian culture so much that it seeps out of my skin, through my mouth, or from the way I stand? For the most part, I’m happy with who I am. Why must people feel the...
Reese and his mom
Reese: I probably know more about genitals than you do. And you're in med school.
Phillip: Have you ever actually seen a vagina in person?
Reese: Yes. I've seen my mom's many times.
Phillip: ...
Reese: I have a habit of walking into bathrooms without knocking. It's not like I'm traumatized or anything.
Phillip: How many times has this happened?
Reese: Like ten times. It's kind of weird looking.
December 2008
6 posts
At the time, funny, right now, not.
To cheer myself up today, when a family of tourists asked me where the Empire State Building was, instead of telling them they were right in front of it, I convinced them that the Empire State Building is actually a miniature model of a skyscraper. “It’s currently in the Natural Museum of History.”
“Thank you!” the mother said with what I assumed was a German...
What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About... →
The lucrative nature of that revenue increase cannot be appreciated without doing something that T-Mobile chose not to do, which is to talk about whether its costs rose as the industry’s messaging volume grew tenfold. Mr. Kohl’s letter of inquiry noted that “text messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost...
I love writing about names
In the beginning, the girl they called Gina was actually named Eugenia, a name that originated from the feminization of Eugene, meaning well-born, noble, great. Eugenics is frowned upon, the maximization of gene potential synonymous with Hitler’s Aryan race, but if there was ever to be a perfect human subspecies, Eugenia would be the name of the first perfect woman.
First Paragraph
By the time the year 1988 AD rolled around, the name Jennifer had dropped to number five on the list of most popular baby names for newborn girls, usurped of the lofty position of number one it had held for a record fourteen years. Her alphabetical neighbor, Jessica, had finally wrestled the position of foremost on most mothers’ minds in 1985 and from then on it was a slow descent down the top...
What Robert's Mind is Like
burn:
I know, I know, I’m a gay, but dude, have you seen that Single Ladies video? You know, the Beyonce one that everyone does the parody of? GOD DAMN THAT WOMAN IS LIKE 98% MUSCLE AND 2% LEOTARD. SERIOUSLY She’s all: RRR THESE ARE MY HIPS AND THEY DO AS I TELL THEM. My hips are not NEARLY as obedient as beyonce’s. My hips are all “What, we gotta walk places now? God dammit. Why I gotta lift...
Post-Thanksgiving Conversation
Mother: So how often do you masturbate?
Phillip: What?
Mother: I know your dad does it. All men do it.
Phillip: OK.
Mother: So do you do it every day? Once a week?
Phillip: We’re not having this discussion.
Mother: As long as you're not having sex, it's fine.
November 2008
5 posts
Empty Nests, Baby Angels, and Sean (!)
A lot has been said about mothers who go through “empty nest syndrome,” that it takes a long time for parents to get used to the fact that their children don’t live with them anymore. My parents definitely went through this period. But I haven’t heard a lot about what it’s like for the children. A child’s seemingly natural path is to move away from his or her parents.
I haven’t been home in three...
How Axl Rose Spent All That Time →
So apparently Chinese Democracy was released today. I found this out by stumbling upon an article in The New York Times. It’s being sold exclusively through Best Buy, at least in the United States. I would think that an album around fifteen years in the making would garner a little more attention, but maybe Axl Rose doesn’t attract the sort of publicity that he used to.
A Single Poop
Even though he almost exclusively drank tap water, he absolutely refused to consume water from the bathroom sink. “It’s only for brushing your teeth and washing your hands. It has different chemicals in it.” He rationalized many of his senseless decisions by this same logic. The kitchen sink was to be used specifically for washing the dishes, rinsing vegetables and fruits, and filling up the...
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin’...