Shakespeare

This week we started to read Much Ado About Nothing, and learn about Shakespeare's Comedies and his Tragedies.  Much Ado About Nothing is already looking to be a promising book.  The set up for comedy is great, and the characters are perfectly matched.  I am looking forward to seeing how everything works out, whether Don John succeeds in ruining the marriage, or if Claudio gets to marry Hero and Benedict and Beatrice get together.

Mistakes

I just noticed the note under the title on my book.  It says "A Surgeon's Note on an Imperfect Science".  While reading this book, i have come to learn how much medicine is an imperfect science.  Atul Gawande tells of a story were a car crash victim comes into the ER, and they try to intubate her (tube down the throat to help breathing).  The resident failed the first time, and tried again.  In doing this, he caused inflammation in the throat making breathing for her impossible.  Reading this really sent home the point that surgeons are just like everyone else.  They can make mistakes too.

Outside Reading

The main character talks about why specialization in hospitals can make a huge difference.  In one extreme case, two different hospitals were introduced to the same new procedure.  The first hospital had new people working on the procedure daily and had a low success rate.  The second hospital keep the same staff of people working on the procedure and had a extremely high success rate.  Practice makes perfect

Daily Work

Last week we spend most of class peer editing our research papers.  Then on friday we watched a very interesting documentary on Shakespeare.  I don't know what grade i'm going to get on my research paper, but i struggled with it and the grade may not be so good. 

Class Work

This week we worked on our research papers.  I chose the topic of stem cell research.  It's intresting to read about because there are many old articles that say stem cell is going to be the main topic of the 2008 election, yet I have yet to hear of it in any debates so far.  

Complications for the Surgeon

For the beginning of the book, the main character has had go through the burden of practicing procedures on patients.  Now, as he goes into his seventh year of residency, he goes through the burden of telling untrained beginner's, once like himself, to practice on patients.  This give the main character a whole new level of things to worry about, because he is liable if they mess up.