Well I’m on the grind right now and that is all I can really say about medical school. In 2 weeks Christmas break starts but before I can enjoy any of it I have to go through a test week which also includes 2 subject board exams (Neuroscience and Psychopathology). I technically have 1 more week to get ready for it and there just aren’t enough hours. But it doesn’t make sense to complain about that anymore; right now I just have to put my head down and come up for air when it is done.
LIke my Chiropractic Medicine experience a couple of weeks ago, my school also required me to go to an Accupuncture clinic. I was not impressed at all. Their theories for why things work (i.e.- increased kidney function makes your hair grow longer) has no physiological basis, and they are fine with it. I don’t doubt that when they stick a couple of pins in you along their Meridian lines that it makes you feel better. But their are countless examples in medicine were people are “made better” from the placebo effect. Our bodies are amazing machines and from what I was shown, accupuncture only affects the internal placebo system. But you know what, everyone wants a piece of the healthcare pie, and people are paying these “doctors” to toture them, so what can I say. I don’t think I will be sending my patients to them.
Good luck for the exams.
About the acupuncture, being born into a chinese family with chinese culture, I am inclined to believe it. Plus, I have read amazing stories in ancient China. However, like you said, it has no physiological basis and that what bothers me.
Hello, Happy Holidays, I’m fellow Sda and African-American pre-med at an Sda school. I read all your posts cause I like to get an inside view of what its like being in medical school particularly Loma Linda and I draw inspiration from them. Keep posting. However I notice you are a little critical about alternative forms of medicine. I don’t really believe or know if chiropractic and acupuncture medicine works but maybe you should be less critical of what other people do for a living, calling them quacks and stuff. I mean we are Sda, prayer and Jesus speaking and healing someone isn’t in your evidence based medicine books either.
Just a thought, Merry Christmas
-J
Hey J. LLU makes it a point to introduce us to alternate forms of medicine. They want us to know about these fields because many of our patients will be using these method of treatment in addition to ours. While I know that prayer isn’t evidence based I am comfortable with that because it was never meant to be. And honestly, I would say prayer is evidence based. No one would pray if theier prayers were never answered. But yeah, I didn’t say that the accupuncture guys were quacks, I simply said that there is no physical basis for what they do. But it does make people feel better which is undeniable. But personally, I would rather prefer to see some logical reasoning behind a method before someone sticks 20 pins into me and connects those pins to shock electrodes. We spent 5 hours with them and I didn’t leave a believer. The chiropractic guys conviced me though that there is something to what they do…at least something tangible.
20 pins. Shock electrodes. I think I would pass on that too, haha.
My husband was THE BIGGEST SKEPTIC about acupuncture. (In fact, he is pretty skeptical of most doctors too.) Anyway he was receiving treatment for an on-the-job injury and the coordinating dr for the treatment recommended accup after some other treatments were not working very well. He said no repeatedly because he feels just like you about the effectiveness of it and didn’t want to waste taxpayer money (he is employed by the state) on the treatments. Finally he went and it was the only thing that worked on my skeptic husband. For that reason I kind of think there must be something to it, because I’m pretty sure there was no “placebo” effect ~ it should have *not* worked if that were the case.