Category: News

Callbacks

Touro Lecture Hall

It was kind of surreal being back in the classroom again.  I really had a hard time being there at first.  You see, none of the testing or anything we did counts toward a grade.  I felt really unmotivated, but then I remembered how stressed out Western students always are over their shelf exams, and I felt a little better.  

OMM Lab Tables

Of course, we also got to see where all our tuition was going.  300k went into upgrades in the OMM lab.  It’s really impressive.  They have HD video with three cameras and about twenty monitors.

OMM Lab

Tonight we got to play a little euchre with Collin and Brian.  I caught them both “in the barn”.

Euchre BarnEuchre

The Fires

We got a little scare today when someone told me that a fire in Fontana had some people considering mandatory evacuations in Rancho Cucamonga.  Fortunately, the fires in Fontana have been contained.  We’re all safe, but we can still see the plume from the Grass Valley and Slide fires near Arrowhead.  Lara took some pictures today:

Fire Plume

Here you can see the plume rising.

Santa Ana Winds

This shows the wind bending the trees.  These Santa Ana winds are fierce.  They have gusts up to 80 mph.  Stuff from our yard has been blown into neighbor’s yards – Three trees were blown over in our neighborhood – I even saw freeway signs that were bent from the force of the winds.

Sun Obscured

The smoke was so thick this afternoon that the sun turned red.  You can see ash falling like snow in some places. 

USMLE Percentile Table

Here’s a little table to help you interpret your USMLE scores. The scores reported are hard to decipher, and it sometimes helps to think of your score in terms of percentiles to see how you performed relative to your peers. This table is based on the most recent administration of the test in which the mean was 218 and the standard deviation was 23 for first-time test takers in the US and Canada. A score of 185 is passing. Keep in mind that the SEM for this measure was 6 points, so you should think of your percentile as a range. For example, someone who scored a 210 should add 6 and subtract 6 to look at the percentiles between 204 and 216. This gives us a range of 27th to 45th percentile.

USMLE 3-digit score Percentile
267 98
266 98
265 98
264 98
263 97
262 97
261 97
259 96
258 96
257 96
256 95
255 95
254 94
253 94
251 93
250 92
249 91
248 91
247 90
246 88
244 87
243 87
242 86
241 84
240 82
239 82
238 81
236 79
235 77
234 77
233 75
232 73
231 70
230 70
228 68
227 66
226 63
225 61
224 61
223 58
221 55
220 55
219 53
218 50
217 47
216 45
215 45
213 42
212 39
211 39
210 37
209 34
208 32
207 32
205 30
204 27
203 25
202 25
201 23
200 21
198 19
197 19
196 18
195 16
194 14
193 14
192 13
190 12
189 10
188 10
187 9
186 8
185 7
184 7
182 6
181 5
180 5
179 5
178 4
177 4
175 3
174 3
173 3
172 2
171 2
170 2
169 2
167 1

The ‘Ashley Treatment’

Biomedical Ethics has always intrigued me.  This groundbreaking case has shocked and amazed me.  When I mentioned it to one of my professors, he exclaimed: “THIS HAPPENED IN AMERICA?” 

Ashley is a 9 year old girl with static encephalopathy, an idiopathic condition that renders her permananently disabled.  Her doctors removed her breasts, uterus, and ovaries at the request of her parents.  They also used high-dose estrogen to force her growth plates to fuse and stop the growth of long bones.

Many people are outraged, accusing the parents of orchestrating the treatment to maintain a more “portable and manageable” child. 

Her parents claim that the treatment was done to decrease Ashley’s discomfort by eliminating menstrual cramps and bedsores.  They also claim that there is a family history of breast cancer, but there is no mention of BRCA testing.

Here’s a link to the story on CNN.

Here’s a link to the family’s blog.

What do you think?  Please comment below…

DVR dilemma

A TV that forces you to watch ads? It’s possible – Tech News & Reviews – MSNBC.com

So Philips has filed a patent that would force people to watch ads by locking up their sets during commercial breaks.  Not only would it prevent you from changing the channel, but your DVR would have the fast-forward button locked out as well.  The real interesting part about this is that Philips is kicking around the idea of offering a net-zero like television experience, where it’s free or cheap if you watch the ads, but you have the opportunity to watch it without the ads and pay a fee.  HMMM…

Continue reading “DVR dilemma”

Site Changes / Under Construction

I am in the process of migrating to a MySQL database backend for a lot of my content.  The root directory of my website had become congested with so many files that keeping them all straight was becoming a problem, and most of the time when I felt like posting something, I was just too lazy to do it because I didn’t want to bother with all the markup.  I am using wordpress for the blog, and zenphoto for the photo gallery.  I hope that all of my zero site visitors enjoy all the hard work I am putting into this….

Everybody’s got a freaking website now!

Lara’s Lair can now be found at lara.bigbri.net. Devin is by far the youngest person to ever have a website. Just yesterday he downloaded in his pants! Devin’s Deeds can be found at devin.bigbri.net. I know these addresses are going to be hard to remember (They’re so counter-intuitive) so I put links up at the top of my site, too.