he copied it from me :P I still think my version is superior.
Funny @ the Library
While studying for my Physics E/M final. Luou kindly reminds me about protons and electrons:
“Remember, protons are pretty girls and electrons are fan boys hovering around the proton. And since usually the pretty girl has quite a few suitors, the fanboys (electrons) have NEGATIVE feelings towards other electrons but POSITIVE feelings towards the proton (pretty girl). Man, I should have been a physics professor.”
Thanks Luou.
“Science works in data and statistics, but medicine is made up of stories, says Elizabeth Rider, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Narratives form the backbone of medicine — they’re the way people make sense of the evidence.
Women whose breast cancers were diagnosed with a mammogram will never be persuaded by the new mammography guidelines, Breast Cancer Action’s Brenner says. “They all say, ‘If it weren’t for that mammogram, I’d be dead right now,’” she says, “even though we know from the data that this wasn’t the case for most of them.”
“Victims of overdiagnosis don’t say, ‘Look what the system did to me.’ They say, ‘Thank God the doctor saved me,’” says Thomas B. Newman, a physician and narrative medicine expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “Nobody can say I had an unnecessary mastectomy, and nobody would want to; it doesn’t make a good story.”
Belief is a very difficult thing to overturn, especially when the belief is held by people with a vested interest in the old message. Sometimes these investments are monetary (back doctors make more money on procedures than on conservative treatment), but they can also be altruistic — breast cancer advocacy groups want to offer women something to protect themselves from a scary disease.
When the evidence presents a messy, unsatisfying picture, people are likely to take refuge in a more comforting story, even in the face of evidence that it’s wrong. It comes down to something the satirist Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness,” a term he coined in a 2005 episode of his Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. “Truthiness is what you want the facts to be, as opposed to what the facts are,” Colbert said. “It is the truth that is felt deep down, in the gut.” The backlash against the new mammography guidelines stemmed in part from the truthiness of the message that mammography could prevent breast cancer. No matter that it wasn’t true, it was what people wanted to believe.
”
Rational Arguments — Evidence Is Only Part of the Story
Please read this entire article. It’s one of the best pieces I’ve read in a long time and describes the challenges of communicating and acting on population science at the level of the individual.
(via jayparkinsonmd)
By Numbers: 6 3 more days of class (8 5 days to LDOC) | 15 12 days to the end of finals | 17 14 days to Atlanta | 21 18 days to home
By Obstacles: Health Policy Paper | PPE Paper | Philosophy take home exam | PPE take home exam | Physics Final | Health Policy Final
Good Morning: And Happy (Er, Sad) Equal Pay Day
Today, April 20, is Equal Pay Day—a yearly marker of how long women must work into the current year (at 77 cents per every male dollar) to earn what men earned in the year past. We’ll be updating throughout the day, but here are a few figures to get your morning started:
8 months of groceries
The amount a woman could buy for a family of four if she were paid equal to her male peers, according to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the USDA.58 cents
The amount that Latina women make per every male dollar in the United States. The gap among African American women is 70 cents; women overall—the figure we most often hear—is 77 cents.9 percent
The amount by which the United States’ GDP could increase if the gender gap were closed.
bijan sabet: Some thoughts about the marathon, startups & venture life →
Today is Patriots Day which is a holiday here in Massachusetts and many offices including our office at Spark are closed.
The Boston marathon also takes place this morning which is the oldest annual marathon according to Wikipedia.
We love watching the runners in the marathon and we pretty…
Its been over a year, and I’m still giddy every time I think about you.
2010 Pulitzer Prizes Winners →
Journalism
Public Service - Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier
Breaking News Reporting - The Seattle Times Staff
Investigative Reporting - Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News and Sheri Fink of ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine
Explanatory Reporting - Michael Moss and members of The New York Times Staff
Local Reporting - Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
National Reporting - Matt Richtel and members of The New York Times Staff
International Reporting - Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post
Feature Writing - Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post
Commentary - Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post
Criticism - Sarah Kaufman of The Washington Post
Editorial Writing - Tod Robberson, Colleen McCain Nelson and William McKenzie of The Dallas Morning News
Editorial Cartooning - Mark Fiore, self syndicated, appearing on SFGate.com
Breaking News Photography - Mary Chind of The Des Moines Register
Feature Photography - Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post
Letters, Drama and Music
Fiction - Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)
Drama - Next to Normal, music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey
History - Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (The Penguin Press)
Biography - The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles (Alfred A. Knopf)
Poetry - Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)
General Nonfiction - The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday)
Music - Violin Concerto by Jennifer Higdon (Lawdon Press)
Special Citations
press release on the Special Citation awarded to Hank Williams
Follow Through
What a beginning to this week. Thank you Duke, for being so incredible.
4 more weeks to finish strong! and ATL this weekend <3
Its kind of interesting (though not really) that the Ford (Fuqua School of Business) Library has a huge stack of GMAT books when you have to already have taken the test to get in. Unless they are just there for people like me who venture through and try to blend in…until the fact that I’m sitting here with a giant maroon GMAT book (the official guide!) totally gives it away that I don’t belong here.
MD/MBA = sexy.
:)
Plotting in progress
“As I see it, there are three principal requirements for the job. The first is experience in management, business, and organization: maybe someone who’s worked as a management consultant, an entrepreneur, and an executive in both the public and private sectors. The second is the ability and capacity to commit: someone who isn’t likely to have any pressing obligations for the next several years, and who has enough cash that he or she doesn’t need a large private-sector salary. Third is relevant experience in implementing a large-scale health-care reform program, ideally one that involved using an individual mandate and the private insurance system to attain near-universal health insurance.
In other words, this sounds like a job for Mitt Romney.
”
two weeks
- Health Policy Paper
- Physics Exam 2 - Recompile notes and redo problem sets, practice exams
- Butler and Hume Reading
- PPE Reading, Assignment 2 Due Friday
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Signature of the Day: President Obama’s signature as it appears on the health insurance reform bill (AKA The Big Fucking Deal), which was signed into law earlier today. [whflickr.]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5571999de4b028f0242141f2/1529876279394-8B53W8ZDOUD5GSHWQCHU/tumblr_kzrfj1AYDQ1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Signature of the Day: President Obama’s signature as it appears on the health insurance reform bill (AKA The Big Fucking Deal), which was signed into law earlier today. [whflickr.]
Care Practice: Obama Speech Prior to the vote to the Dem Caucus →
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat.
To Leader Reid, to Steny Hoyer, John Larson, Xavier Becerra, Jim Clyburn, Chris Van Hollen, to an extraordinary leader and…
history. →
“Just as Social Security grew from a modest start in 1935 to become a bedrock of the nation’s retirement system, this is a start on health care reform, not the end.”
- NYT