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12/10/08 08:07 am - Genetics
So the Babysitter is sick, which means my 12 hour study day is being cut short by a very cute little baby that does not have anyone to play with.
Which means I stayed up late last night studying, and now I'm sitting at the breakfast table typing up notes while Lena navigates herself around a not quite ripe pear. (It's funny.)
So I'm on lecture 6 out of 12 for this exam, and I've just hit page 13 typing in size 10 font, and I'm actually getting excited. I really like genetics, I think it has amazing potential to change the medical world as we know it. We had Dr. Jim Evans, who is apparently a bigwig in the medical genetics field, he hobknobs with supreme court justices and things like that, who doesn't really think medical genetics will change that much right now, and is worried instead about the social/economic/racial stratification that it will bring.
Which I agree with completely, but not really.
So the question is, this is a burgeoning field of science, who do we throw the money to? Cancer genetics? Cancer might become the biggest killer in the coming years (fact check this: I glanced over this headline on my homepage). Little baby genetics? To have happier healthier kids? Personalized gene chips for personalized medicine? The list goes on and on, all these are worthy causes for government money (more worthy then the damn car industry, that's for sure). But I have other ideas.
Not matter how much technology or knowledge we (the elite doctors and geneticists) have, we're always going to deal with a certain amount of discrimination, here, mainly, I think, against the poor and the uninformed. So what do we need to do to prevent this?
EDUCATION. Teach kids about genetics, what their genome means, and what doctors know.
TEACH STATISTICS: so we know what all these precents mean, don't just throw out words like "predisposition" and "increased risk". It's a numbers game. We can all understand pieces of pie. Give it to us in terms of pie pieces.
(I need to get Lena a bell.)
EDUCATE OUR DOCTORS. Geez, this might be even more important and such a NO BRAINER that it's silly this doesn't happen. Do you know how many people get referred to the genetics clinic at UNC from Fort Bragg for no reason, other then the doctor seeing that a parent of a patient had cancer? Can I get a check on those, I don't know, statistics? I feel like with genetics being this hip new field, doctors that haven't been to med school in the past 5-10 years are attributing more things to genetics because that's what their supposed to, or expected to do. The seem to have forgotten this thing called OLD AGE and the fact that A Lot of people will get cancer as long as we're exposed to enough stuff in this world.
End rant. I need to go back to studying.
Which means I stayed up late last night studying, and now I'm sitting at the breakfast table typing up notes while Lena navigates herself around a not quite ripe pear. (It's funny.)
So I'm on lecture 6 out of 12 for this exam, and I've just hit page 13 typing in size 10 font, and I'm actually getting excited. I really like genetics, I think it has amazing potential to change the medical world as we know it. We had Dr. Jim Evans, who is apparently a bigwig in the medical genetics field, he hobknobs with supreme court justices and things like that, who doesn't really think medical genetics will change that much right now, and is worried instead about the social/economic/racial stratification that it will bring.
Which I agree with completely, but not really.
So the question is, this is a burgeoning field of science, who do we throw the money to? Cancer genetics? Cancer might become the biggest killer in the coming years (fact check this: I glanced over this headline on my homepage). Little baby genetics? To have happier healthier kids? Personalized gene chips for personalized medicine? The list goes on and on, all these are worthy causes for government money (more worthy then the damn car industry, that's for sure). But I have other ideas.
Not matter how much technology or knowledge we (the elite doctors and geneticists) have, we're always going to deal with a certain amount of discrimination, here, mainly, I think, against the poor and the uninformed. So what do we need to do to prevent this?
EDUCATION. Teach kids about genetics, what their genome means, and what doctors know.
TEACH STATISTICS: so we know what all these precents mean, don't just throw out words like "predisposition" and "increased risk". It's a numbers game. We can all understand pieces of pie. Give it to us in terms of pie pieces.
(I need to get Lena a bell.)
EDUCATE OUR DOCTORS. Geez, this might be even more important and such a NO BRAINER that it's silly this doesn't happen. Do you know how many people get referred to the genetics clinic at UNC from Fort Bragg for no reason, other then the doctor seeing that a parent of a patient had cancer? Can I get a check on those, I don't know, statistics? I feel like with genetics being this hip new field, doctors that haven't been to med school in the past 5-10 years are attributing more things to genetics because that's what their supposed to, or expected to do. The seem to have forgotten this thing called OLD AGE and the fact that A Lot of people will get cancer as long as we're exposed to enough stuff in this world.
End rant. I need to go back to studying.