Today was the end of the first week of MedEx. The first thing today was to have a q&a time with medical students at the USCSOMG. All 6 of the panelists had taken different paths to get to medical school, and they were able to speak into the myriad ways to get there. Also, they discussed what a typical day at the USCSOMG looks like, how to decide if medical school is right for us, and many other interesting topics. For me, the panel was very interesting because I got to hear from students who are doing what I plan to do in just a few years. Next, Dr. Cedrek McFadden came and spoke to Tiers I and III of MedEx. He is a rectal and colon surgeon at GHS. Among other things, Dr. McFadden spoke about how to choose a medical specialty, how he got into medicine, and what it is like to balance family, work, and free time. Dr. McFadden also offered tons of great advice to all of us. One such statement was, "You don't work in the silo, you play in the sandbox." To me this emphasized the importance of learning to work as a team. Afterwards, the MedEx Interns presented about writing professional thank you notes, emails, and making phone calls. This was a very beneficial reminder of tips and tricks to use while trying to be professional. The next few hours were spent presenting research projects. Out of the 10 groups who presented on "hot button" topics in Medicine, my favorites were how cell phone usage affects health, if antibacterial soap is really bad, and if video games help/hurt mental illness. All of the topics were great to discuss. I learned a lot of new things like that research has shown that video games can help someone treat mental illness in correct dosages. Also, cell phone radiation has a correlation with tumors in the brain (no causation yet). My group was the 7th out of 10 to present. We spoke on the growing opioid crisis: how it started, what it is, what effects have been, and possible solutions. Essentially opioids have been around for quite a while, but they run in spurts of high usage. In the 1980s/ 1990s big pharmaceutical companies pushed selling opioids without sufficient research hence leading to a crisis. Also, the way Doctors are paid in some circumstances deals with how well they treat pain leading to higher opioid analgesic prescriptions. Sadly, all solutions will likely take a very long time to take effect, like changing rules on how doctors may prescribe opioids/ setting prescription guidelines. To conclude the day, we got our health numbers back. We got to see what our blood sugars, cholesterol, and fat numbers looked like. This was very neat to me because I had never seen any of these numbers. Fantastic week!
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