an unconventional focus.

As evidenced by my 2 blog posts over the past 4 years, I've been anything but a prolific blogger. I've always been reluctant to blog - mostly because of fear.. but let me explain. Anything one post on the internet will be tied to that individual for eternity.. I don't know about you, but that scares the bergeesus out of me. With the emergence of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, the microscope by which others judge our words has become increasingly magnified and reactionary. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just look at what happened to Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall in reaction to his Twitter comments after killing of Osama Bin Laden . While Rashard's comments might cost him a few million dollars here and there in endorsements and the like, it's not necessarily going to jeopardize his career as an elite NFL running back - he's not paid for his thoughts, he's paid to move the rock. As for an emerging physicia...

A new University of Michigan study conducted meta-analysis on 72 different surveys of American college students from 1979 to 2009 and concluded that: "College kids today are about 40 per cent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait." Apparently, college students today are much less likely to agree with the statements,"I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." According to Konrath, the author of the study, "Many people see the current group of college students -- sometimes called 'Generation Me' -- as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history." This so called "Generation Y" or "Generation Me" is something I have contemplated...

I wrote an article for the latest issue of the Journal of the Student National Medical Association (Spring 2007, Vol 13, No. 4) entitled, "Is Single-Payer the Magic Bullet?" There is a misprint on pg. 28 of the issue and I would like to correct it. The 1st sentence of the 2nd paragraph in the Opinion section reads, "Eliminating premiums and co-payments will end health disparities." The original sentence actually read , " I do not believe that eliminating premiums and health disparities. " This is the opinion I was trying to convey and is congruent with the statements I make in the same paragraph as well as those in the proceeding paragraph. If you would like to read the original article, please see below: >>>> When my policy professor claimed that just about every physician who reads the “Proposal of the Physicians’ Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance” endorses it as the solution to the universal healthcare d...