want to lose your appetite?

Some things I learned in medical school this week:

1) If you're a medical student, be warned: you may be shown gross videos at any time, without warning.

People must think we signed up for this or something. Therefore, one day you may walk into your microbes afternoon lecture, unsuspecting, thinking you're going to see some cute pictures of bacteria or viruses, but no - instead you are treated to a 5-minute long video of a foot debridement. What's debridement, you ask? You really don't want to know, but since you're reading my blog, you must be expecting this just as much as I was - debridement is when you cut infected flesh to squeeze out all the pus and scrape away as much of the festering flesh as possible. Repeat that image, five times slow. And the foot just gets more misshapen and festering. And the lecturer just keeps lecturing. Most of the class is looking away, taking glances that just get worse and worse. A few are ogling the screen with what I would describe as unadulterated interest. C'mon people. This stuff is gross.

What's worse is that I know I will have to do it. In real life. With real smells. I think I just threw up in my mouth. But ugh, does that really mean I have to watch it now??

2) Please, please, please America. Stop getting fat. Obesity is a vicious cycle that not only causes medical problems, but makes them harder to treat. Again, my unsuspecting medical student mind expected to zone out a little during a lecture on the mechanics of respiratory ventilation and sleep. Instead, I watched this video with almost as much horror:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

I don't mean to go on a soapbox. I know how hard it is to avoid eating all the amazingly tempting foods we have available to us. But if I've learned nothing else so far this year - becoming obese is one of the worst risk factors for ill health. Ok, I have to stop writing. I need to go to the gym or something.