There are too many acronyms in medicine

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I haven't written lately. There really hasn't been anything "new" in my life other than the fact that, as of three days ago, I have gone into serious studying mode because our exams are the first week of November.

Sadly, I'm writing to you right now from school. I'm sitting in our study carrel, trying to figure out the difference between diffuse alveolar damage (DAD), usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP), Non-specific Interstitial Pneumonia (NSIP), and a whole bunch of three and four letter acronyms of lung disease. It's Sunday-- I'm supposed to be watching football!

So what is "new" in my life? Well, on Friday, the student government members and I organized the Professionalism Lunch for the first year medical students. Professionalism is the new buzzword in medical education these days. They want to make sure that all medical students go to school thinking about their classmates and teachers as collegues. Anyway, the event went pretty well-- I was able to recruit a decent number of faculty members to lead discussion groups, and the first years seemed to enjoy the case scenarios. However, I think I've decided that medical students and support staff aren't cut out to be event planners. We're okay with the big details-- it's just following up on the little details like food that fall through the cracks.

Now, at the risk of starting a doctor-lawyer joke war (since I'm outnumbered), I'm going to include a joke one of my renal professors told.
This doctor is walking on the beach one day, and he finds this bottle. He picks up the bottle, and sure enough, a genie pops out. The genie says, "I'll grant you three wishes, but whatever you wish for will happen twice over to every malpractice lawyer in the world." The doctor nods and wishes for a million dollars. The genie says, "I can do that, but it means that every malpractice lawyer will get two million." Then, the doctor wishes to be very, very handsome. Once again, the genie reminds him that this means every malpractice lawyer will be twice as handome. The doctor agrees and then says, "For my third wish, take one of my kidneys."

On that note, I should probably go back to the wonderful world of lung acronyms . . .

P.S. Here are some notes to everyone:
Babs-- You looking wonderful in all those wedding pictures! Did Merrian and Katy come back to California for the wedding?
Marisa-- Serious conversation about the future, hey? Where does Joe want to do residency (or is he undecided like the rest of us)? Is second year med school keeping him busy?
Amanda-- Congrats on getting a summer job! I can't believe you'll be back in Palo Alto again. The part of me that misses Stanford is jealous.
Char and Marisa-- Your birthday presents are coming-- I promise. You might just have to wait until mid-November.