Gratitude #3

This little corner of the world has become a little dusty, hasn't it? Is blogging even relevant in a world that thrives on the successive dopamine bursts of platforms like TikTok? Surely not, but that's okay. 

This morning, I am grateful for so many things. Here are a few. 

1. That I live in a place where I can ambulate to run errands, which is what I believe God intended when He gave us legs. I discovered a walking trail to the mall yesterday, and it made going to the mall (a place I have mixed feelings about) so much more palatable of an experience.
2. That there has been so much personal growth - both seen and unseen by myself - over the past three years of living in San Diego. I met with a dear friend recently, who I had not seen since before the Covid-19 lockdown, and she reminded me of how much has changed since we had last caught up. There's a certain ease with self that simply was not well-developed when I first moved here. Perhaps it's the simple fact of time having passed, or perhaps it's a beneficial callousness built up after a year of constant evaluation and feedback during my hospital rotations. More likely, I now lack the resources of time and energy to put towards excessive thought about how people might perceive me. Whatever the cause may be, I feel so much more comfortable presenting myself as I am than I did before.
3. I survived the final exam of my medical school career (provided I earned a passing Step 2 score, of course). 
4. God has truly provided a community for me in San Diego. It's one of those things you don't really realize is happening, until suddenly you take pause and realize you have a community that feels just like home. Here's to hoping I might be able to stay and continue to exist in this warmth that is so uncommonly found in life. 

Relevant Lessons From the Sermon on the Mount

It's one of those rare peaceful mornings where I found the time to sit on my balcony with a cup of mediocre coffee and enjoy seven whole chapters of some excellent Word. When was the last time I actually read more than one obligatory chapter of Scripture? Honestly, IDK - heh. 

School has been busy, I have a submission deadline fast approaching, and I've been too exhausted and mind-addled to remember to seek rest by spending time with God. Thank God for my small group (affectionately called "the smoup"), who reminded me of the Biblically proportioned importance of heeding the command to just... rest. 

Here are some notes from Matthew 5, which brought up a lot of questions for me:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (and are persecuted for this reason), those who are merciful, and those who are pure and seek peace. (Matthew 5:3-10)
• We are the salt of the earth and light of the world. (Matthew 5:13-14)
• Why does it often not feel that way?
• Don't judge. Don't call people fools. Be reconciled to our sisters and brothers. (Matthew 5:21-24)
• Don't seek retaliation - we are literally told to turn the other cheek and to go above and beyond when people ask anything of us. (Matthew 5:38-41)
• In our nation, we're so concerned about our personal rights and freedoms. What if we have made these things idols that we ought not be worshipping at all? What if we've confused these as God given, when in fact they were simply a temporary blessing? What does it look like for us to actually not "resist the one who is evil" and turn the other cheek instead? 
• We'd damn well better love our neighbors and our enemies. (Matthew 5:43-48)
• In what ways am I failing to do this? If I'm honest, I'm failing in so many ways. It's so much easier to paint those who disagree with my values as villainous caricatures. What would it look like if I loved them instead? And what if this love wasn't driven by self-righteous pity, but out of any understanding that I've been commanded to do so?  

Buffets, prix fixe menus, and why something needs to be said about pseudoscience in the age of COVID-19

I’ve seen a lot of posts asking why “alternative voices” in the scientific and medical community have been “censored,” all while decrying our loss of the freedom of speech.

Let’s break this down. Let’s say, in an imaginary world, that a tangerine is our president. I write an article saying I hate tangerines and that tangerines lack integrity. These are my opinions. My opinions get published. Then that publication gets removed from the government. This is censorship.

Let’s say I start publishing articles that DNA from tangerines can cure cancer. Not only that, but injecting myself with tangerine oil can protect me against a virus that is sweeping the globe. Unlike opinions, these are simply, factually wrong. These are misguided lies. When my publications containing lies get pulled down by people who understand truth, that’s not censorship. That’s protecting the public from believing things that are objectively wrong.

I get it. We live in a world where fact has become politicized, leading people to believe science is a buffet of facts we can pick and choose from, similar to opinions.

This isn’t the case.

As it stands, science is composed of heavily vetted findings that we present to the public - like a prix fixe menu at a fine restaurant. When we go to a Michelin starred restaurant, we trust the chef knows better than we do - they have years of qualifications, training, and clearly have critic approval. In the case the chef finds something better to serve you, they will change the menu to reflect that - they are constantly seeking to innovate and update, and present the best that they’ve found to date. But the chef isn’t perfect. If they find something in the kitchen has expired or soiled, they will rush to replace it with something else to keep you safe. Ultimately, the chef wants to serve you good things made from the best ingredients, and you can trust the chef to do so because they have more skills and training than you.

Opinions. Censorship. Buffet.

Facts. Safety. Prix fixe menu.

Weird analogy, but it’s the best I could come up with.

Be well; stay physically distant, but emotionally close; take care; wear a mask, please.

Ok, let's do that math... Responding to whatever the opposite of fear-mongering is during COVID-19

A family friend posted this article from the Washington Times on social media this morning, with the TLDR being that COVID-19 cases have been super low and that it's being blown out of proportion when compared to influenza. Here's a link to said article. Honestly, I didn't know this media outlet existed until this morning.

Anyway, the article opens with a poor presentation of data. Flu is reported in terms of thousands and millions, COVID is reported in tenths and hundredths of percents. It didn't rest well with me, so I did the equivalent of making a two by two table and crunched out the numbers myself. Here's the text from my comment, as I feel I spent too much time working on it to just let it hang out on FB to be forgotten.

I read this article, and the way they presented the numbers didn’t quite sit right with me, but I didn’t just want to “feel” like it was wrong. I wanted to see why - so I put my sleepy med student brain to work.  

1)      The authors of this article compare influenza, which occurred over the course of 6 months, to COVID, which has been on our shores for approximately 4. If we adjust the values given for flu to match the time frame for COVID, we get 25.7-43.6 million confirmed cases and 15.8-41k deaths.  

2)      For COVID, they list the numbers as percentages, which from a data ethics point of view isn’t the right way to do it. It can deceive readers into thinking things are smaller (or larger) than they actually are, which is unfair, in my opinion. Anyway, translating these percentages to real numbers, we get 561k infections in the US, and 23.1k deaths.  

3)      So, let’s say in a 4 month span, flu has 25.7-43.6 million confirmed cases. COVID has 561k new infections. Flu is much more rigorously tested than COVID, mostly because it’s cyclic and we expect and prepare for its arrival each year. Still, okay – 561k is much less than 25.7-43.6 million.  

4)      Now, let’s look at the deaths. 15.8-41k deaths for flu. 23.1k deaths for COVID. 23.1k falls into the range of 15.8-41k, so we can say that the raw number of deaths, based on this article’s data, are not actually that different from each other.    

5)      Finally, let’s calculate the percent of people (or percent mortality) who die from each disease, based on these numbers that I’ve already crunched. Based on these numbers, flu has a percent mortality somewhere between 0.06-0.1% - in other words, it takes about 1000 infections for a person to die of the disease. For COVID, the percent mortality is 4%. This would mean for every 1000 infections, 40 would die – and in fact, COVID has a 40-67 times increased mortality based on the data they presented in this article.  

All this to say, calling the case and death counts “ridiculously low” isn’t true, and is a very callous way to talk about death. Based on the timelines, the same ballpark amount of death has happened due to COVID as would happen with flu in the same amount of time. However, with COVID we are being way more cautious, enacting social distancing, and yes – perhaps sacrificing parts of the economy. The fact that deaths between flu, a disease that has historically not altered social activity very much at all, and COVID have been similar withthese precautions in place underscores the importance of what we’ve been doing.  

Anyway, if you’re still hanging with me, I realize the comment is long… but I did the math as the article instructed, and I’m not impressed.

Gratitude #2

1. The ability to crash-land at my aunt and uncle's house and just... be. 
2. Old Disney movies and guac.
3. Quiet mornings with a new bag of beans and some Word.
4. Tupperwares full of freshly made kimchi and fragrant garam masala.
5. Silence.

Reflections from a 25% MD

I am 25% done with my medical education, and supposedly the toughest year of med school is almost behind us. As the year has been wrapping up, complete with a copious volume of exams, I've been able to reflect on how much I've grown in the past year.

I can now sit down in front of a random histology slide and name the organ it was cut from. I can now complete a physical exam, head to toe. (Granted, I know nothing about pathology and can't interpret abnormal findings, but that's a problem for next year me.) I don't stutter like a fool when I talk to patients. I no longer want to die when I get pimped by attendings. Imposter syndrome is now just a thing I feel on bad days, not a means of defining my entire existence. 

Perhaps more than anything, I have a better grasp of what I don't know. And if I learned anything in the past decade, it's that acknowledging what we don't understand is the first step in beginning to grasp that knowledge. 

A mentor helped me understand that I'm just a mere pupa at the beginning of a long career - the beginning of an era of learning how to merge this calling with the other, arguably more important, spheres of my life. How do I fit medicine into the spaces of my life, and how do I avoid diving in so deep that I find myself instead trying to fit my life into the spaces of medicine?

Because I know I'm just a pupa, I know that I'll make mistakes. It's inevitable in this life, and I want to give myself the space to learn, to tweak, to optimize. But throughout this time, I want to also learn how to slow down; how to enjoy the ordinary; how to stop and enjoy the life God has deigned to give to me. 

In addition to all this, I want to learn how to be humble; how to ask for help when I need it; how to acknowledge the consequences of my inevitable failures, and not buckle under that burden in the future. 

More than anything, I'm looking back on this year and am immensely moved with gratitude for what God has built in the past 10 months. I moved to San Diego without a community, and started school with the attitude that I would certainly not find that community at school. I've felt a strong sense of community at church for quite some time now; however, this past month I've reveled at the depth of friendships and fellowship I have additionally found with my classmates. 

So at the end of the day, God is good. It's been a year of learning and growing in community. A year of unpredictable, but decidedly good, direction from the Father. A year ago, I still thought I'd be going to school in LA, and I'm not saying that would have been bad, but I am very thankful that God brought me to San Diego. 

Keep learning, keep loving and serving. Here's to reflecting on being 50% MD in a year.

Gratitude #1

"Singers and dancers alike say, 'All my springs are in you.'" 

-Psalm 87:7

"Because a thankful heart is a happy heart."

-Veggie Tales 

1. Thankful to have been placed in an intersection with so many beautiful people to meet and to know; to love and to serve.
2. Thankful for the music you've given us to enjoy, to play, to clumsily dance along to in crowded concert venues. 
3. Thankful for the sun that you allow to shine anew each morning.
4. Thankful for little things. Coffee, cozy apartments, quiet moments, overalls and striped tees.
5. Thankful for those moments of discovery in every relationship - that your grace can bond us through things that truly matter (like Christ) and things that don't (like Katy Perry). 
6. Thankful to have been reminded by a brother to intentionally shape a heart of gratitude and worship. The culture of medicine is steeped in complaining and dissatisfaction. Allow me to be satisfied in you, and may my clumsy attempts at dancing always be fueled by the hope that all my springs are in you and you alone.