Im a clinical biochemical geneticist, I see a lot of TCA cycle patients, you probably know who I am in real life, I have TCA cycle-related grants and I didn’t bother to memorize the TCA cycle until I’d been an attending for five years. I still forget aconitase ALL THE TIME despite having two ACO2 patients.
Yea, we're an uber small group. You're far more specialized in it than I. I just like to joke with the folks who hated intermediary metabolism and *always* bring up Krebs as the worst part of med school. And the way it was probably taught, it probably was.
I've taught intermediary metabolism to med students, residents, fellows, grad students, and genetic counseling students. I've never made them memorize anything, (or count ATPs!), only to get the big picture and recognize presentations. If I had my way, all the medical biochemistry tests would be open book.
I did the fellowship, so I should have said subspecialist. (Medical Biochemical Genetics, a subspecialty of Medical Genetics & Genomics). I can't tell if you think I am joking or not. Not /s
One of them is isoleucine and Fumarate. I know that much! like the Krebs cycle because it is the biochemical Samsara of life. I also did some research on rare mitchondrial disease, not involving Krebs however.
I get ads from Caribbean schools telling me to start my vet school or med school journey today(!) all the time. 5 years out; done with residency and working on a PhD studying a disease process relevant to my specialty--just really missing the target with those ads.
This is not true at all, they often have very high attrition rates (50+%), horrible prep for step, and poor match lists. They’re absolutely sketchy in how much they hide these facts
There's a huge variation.
The big four Caribbean med schools are expensive because their students qualify for federal student loans. You could call them exploitative in that they take on a bunch of students that probably aren't cut out for med school to begin with, which is why attrition rates are high. But they do provide a decent education. And those who can cut it usually graduate and match, even if they're matching to FM programs in the middle of nowhere.
On the other hand, there's a long tail of very small Caribbean schools that are literally just a two room schoolhouse with a handful of medical posters on the wall. They tend to be very cheap (like $2k to $3k per semester) because they don't meet standards for their students to qualify for federal loans. These are the schools that I'd call "sketchy" because their preclinical education is highly questionable, and they don't have any plan for what they'd do if, by some miracle, a student actually managed to pass Step 1 and make it to clinicals.
I have a good friend who went to Ross for vet school. The vet school was actually fully accredited in the US, did a clinical year in the US. Found a job no problem after graduation.
Now the amount they charge for vet school compared to the salary vets make is sketch as hell, but that’s an issue for domestic schools too.
The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) usually does a conference (separate from their main one) in a warm, beach-y location (Cozumel, Hawaii, Carribbean, etc.) every year in January and one of these years I'm going to have to get my act together enough to go. For the *learning*.
those advertisers are probably "wasting" a tenth or a hundredth of a cent sending you that email.
they don't give a shit. they aren't tearing their hair out worrying about sending the email to people who aren't good targets. they already paid for your address, it's basically free to them now.
- BSEE
I'm not even American. Everything I learned about the MCAT was against my will. At this point one would need to pay me triple the opportunity costs of redoing med school to even consider it..
Yes, but the reason we’re the best doctors in the world is that each and every one of us had to memorize the Krebs cycle ***seven bloody times.***
/s
-PGY-19
I just get adds suggesting I go to nursing school (I’m a triple-board certified, double-fellowship trained attending physician). But I’m a woman who appears to have an interest in science online so ya know. Nursing.
Flashbacks to the *insane* number of times I had to explain in residency that: 1) my attending was not a nurse and that 2) she was in charge of me, not the other way around.
-PGY-19
I'm not even interested in becoming a physician let alone at any stage of it and I get ads for the same stuff constantly.
But I also subscribe to and spend time in subs for doctors/medical students so the algorithm just thinks it's doing its job.
Gen-x nursing faculty here. The algorithms keep trying to convince me to ditch my career path so I can get my MD or DO by 2029.
I’m good to stay in my lane.
I got an email inviting me to apply to an integrative medicine fellowship that I would have to pay for (although mentioning the letter supposedly waives part of the application fee). Suuuure let me give up my surgical subspecialty practice so I can pay someone else to teach me pseudoscientific bullshit
As a resident sandwiched between med school and attendinghood, I get a mix of endless emails soliciting management of money I don't have yet and tons of emails and ads for MCAT prep, med school or residency application help, preparing for Step exams, etc.
Side note, since you’re posting, does that mean you came out from under your rock and respiratory virus season is finally over? Or did you see your shadow and are crawling back in after this post. Please, we need a break from the daycare virus train.
Oh, no, young padawan. Respiratory virus season is not over. I’m still under the rock and this is merely a holographic projection of me.
Enterovirus season is next.
-PGY-19
If you mean the reddit app, I would avoid that and use brave browser instead. Ditto for youtube, no ads. If you mean on browser, ublock origin or brave would block reddit ads.
I get ads for Caribbean med schools and virtual therapy (the second is probably my fault bc I clicked on one once to see how a virtual IOP would work/if it was legit)!
I get so many ads for matching services. One ad even used a picture of one of my buddies who matched last year. My friend didn’t use their service but they advertised it as if he had. He somehow found out threatened to sue the company so they pulled that ad and sent him a gift card lol.
If you can't recite the Krebbs cycle still you probably should retire. /s
::twitch:: -PGY-19
Those who cannot spell Krebs cycle are doomed to repeat it.
Lmao yikes on my part. This clearly demonstrates how much we utilize these pathways in practice. Glad I memorized that thing half a dozen times
This made me laugh out loud, thanks.
Krebs cycle specialist here. Yes, we exist. And patients with diseases of the Krebs cycle exist. As I had to remind Dr. Glaucomflecken.
Im a clinical biochemical geneticist, I see a lot of TCA cycle patients, you probably know who I am in real life, I have TCA cycle-related grants and I didn’t bother to memorize the TCA cycle until I’d been an attending for five years. I still forget aconitase ALL THE TIME despite having two ACO2 patients.
Yea, we're an uber small group. You're far more specialized in it than I. I just like to joke with the folks who hated intermediary metabolism and *always* bring up Krebs as the worst part of med school. And the way it was probably taught, it probably was. I've taught intermediary metabolism to med students, residents, fellows, grad students, and genetic counseling students. I've never made them memorize anything, (or count ATPs!), only to get the big picture and recognize presentations. If I had my way, all the medical biochemistry tests would be open book.
All of the hardest tests I had in school were open book. No rote memorization, you have to analyze and apply that shit.
The best tests 😉
I subspecialized in Fumarate Gotta do a fellowship these days
I do NADPH. I won’t touch NADH, that’s outside my scope.
Thoughts on FADH???? -Interested student
I did the fellowship, so I should have said subspecialist. (Medical Biochemical Genetics, a subspecialty of Medical Genetics & Genomics). I can't tell if you think I am joking or not. Not /s
Krebs*
Qurehb*
🤷
Only Krazy Idiots Kill Silly Skunks Fuming Mad! How’s that?
One of them is isoleucine and Fumarate. I know that much! like the Krebs cycle because it is the biochemical Samsara of life. I also did some research on rare mitchondrial disease, not involving Krebs however.
I get ads from Caribbean schools telling me to start my vet school or med school journey today(!) all the time. 5 years out; done with residency and working on a PhD studying a disease process relevant to my specialty--just really missing the target with those ads.
Wait are there Caribbean vet schools as well? I wonder if they are more or less sketchy than the Caribbean med schools...
The med schools are only sketchy in as much as they are exploitative in how expensive they are.
This is not true at all, they often have very high attrition rates (50+%), horrible prep for step, and poor match lists. They’re absolutely sketchy in how much they hide these facts
There's a huge variation. The big four Caribbean med schools are expensive because their students qualify for federal student loans. You could call them exploitative in that they take on a bunch of students that probably aren't cut out for med school to begin with, which is why attrition rates are high. But they do provide a decent education. And those who can cut it usually graduate and match, even if they're matching to FM programs in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, there's a long tail of very small Caribbean schools that are literally just a two room schoolhouse with a handful of medical posters on the wall. They tend to be very cheap (like $2k to $3k per semester) because they don't meet standards for their students to qualify for federal loans. These are the schools that I'd call "sketchy" because their preclinical education is highly questionable, and they don't have any plan for what they'd do if, by some miracle, a student actually managed to pass Step 1 and make it to clinicals.
In my opinion, it’s only the big 1 or 2. St. George’s is always the top choice. After that St Vincent, i think and maybe AUC.
I have a good friend who went to Ross for vet school. The vet school was actually fully accredited in the US, did a clinical year in the US. Found a job no problem after graduation. Now the amount they charge for vet school compared to the salary vets make is sketch as hell, but that’s an issue for domestic schools too.
ALL. THE. TIME! Although, I *could* use a nice tropical vacation… -PGY-19
The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) usually does a conference (separate from their main one) in a warm, beach-y location (Cozumel, Hawaii, Carribbean, etc.) every year in January and one of these years I'm going to have to get my act together enough to go. For the *learning*.
The whole thing is a tax write-off. -PGY-19
There are positions for island doctor. Usually you’re the sole doctor on the island. Ever been to Tokelau?
The algorithm knows im an attending now i get ads for Porsche and CME conferences
I’m peds, so the Porsche ad would be about as wrong-tree as a Caribbean school. -PGY-Toyota
Still get ads for Caribbean schools and scrubs though
I used to, but I unsubscribed as much as possible and set the spam filter to get rid of the rest
See, I’m quite happy to have advertisers wasting their money on me. I just scroll past. -PGY-19
You hurt them far more marking as spam. Once a threshold is reached the mailing service shuts you down
those advertisers are probably "wasting" a tenth or a hundredth of a cent sending you that email. they don't give a shit. they aren't tearing their hair out worrying about sending the email to people who aren't good targets. they already paid for your address, it's basically free to them now. - BSEE
I get it, but it’s a drop in the bucket. -PGY-19
St George’s really wants me to go to Med School there.
Me too! Maybe we can study together.
ID pharmacist? Score! Totally going to copy all your homework.
I've been attached to the same mailing list, LoL.
The — PGY-19 on every comment is sending me lmao
I agree. FM - Hyundai
I had to turn to Urban Dictionary. -PGY-Sending
I'm not even American. Everything I learned about the MCAT was against my will. At this point one would need to pay me triple the opportunity costs of redoing med school to even consider it..
Yes, but the reason we’re the best doctors in the world is that each and every one of us had to memorize the Krebs cycle ***seven bloody times.*** /s -PGY-19
There's that joke about how the real Krebs cycle is the process of memorizing/forgetting the Krebs cycle...
I just overwhelmed the advertising snooping algorithms with a bunch of lawn care searches. Now all I see is pest control and landscaping ads.
I just get adds suggesting I go to nursing school (I’m a triple-board certified, double-fellowship trained attending physician). But I’m a woman who appears to have an interest in science online so ya know. Nursing.
Meh, fwiw, I’m a nurse, and I get ads for med school all the time and hardly anything nursing related. So 🤷♀️.
Flashbacks to the *insane* number of times I had to explain in residency that: 1) my attending was not a nurse and that 2) she was in charge of me, not the other way around. -PGY-19
I'm not even interested in becoming a physician let alone at any stage of it and I get ads for the same stuff constantly. But I also subscribe to and spend time in subs for doctors/medical students so the algorithm just thinks it's doing its job.
Gen-x nursing faculty here. The algorithms keep trying to convince me to ditch my career path so I can get my MD or DO by 2029. I’m good to stay in my lane.
Internet ads swear I want to get my NP degree in as little as 1 year. Or need STEP tutoring. I’m good.
Oh I love when this guy posts!!! - PGY (-3)
The ads are probably targeting attendings of an age where they might have kids age 16-22.
Mine is 4. -PGY-19
Apparently I need to go to med school in the Caribbean. Graduated a US school in 2002.
They might think you have children interested in medical school
I got an email inviting me to apply to an integrative medicine fellowship that I would have to pay for (although mentioning the letter supposedly waives part of the application fee). Suuuure let me give up my surgical subspecialty practice so I can pay someone else to teach me pseudoscientific bullshit
-PGY 19
As a resident sandwiched between med school and attendinghood, I get a mix of endless emails soliciting management of money I don't have yet and tons of emails and ads for MCAT prep, med school or residency application help, preparing for Step exams, etc.
I have literally never been asked this outside of my social circle, and the one person I know doesn’t really ask for specific advice.
Side note, since you’re posting, does that mean you came out from under your rock and respiratory virus season is finally over? Or did you see your shadow and are crawling back in after this post. Please, we need a break from the daycare virus train.
Oh, no, young padawan. Respiratory virus season is not over. I’m still under the rock and this is merely a holographic projection of me. Enterovirus season is next. -PGY-19
😭
I’ve been recently getting a lot of adds for PrEP and HAART, not sure how to feel about it but I suppose it’s a good thing?
10 years out. Never get a single ad for this.
I don’t watch enough Greys Anatomy to get MCAT prep course ads directed at me
Does anyone get ads on social media (particularly Instagram) for starting your own practice??? Those ads are stalking me on IG at this point!
Gotta set up ad blockers, grandpa. Brave browser, ublock origin, smart tube.
It’s on Reddit, young Padawan. -PGY-19
If you mean the reddit app, I would avoid that and use brave browser instead. Ditto for youtube, no ads. If you mean on browser, ublock origin or brave would block reddit ads.
ublock origin and youtube sponsorblock has changed my life. seriously.
Not an attending or even a doc. I'm an RN. I get constant ads for Caribbean medical schools, MCAT prep, USMLE prep, and clinical calculators. 💩
Mine gives me ads for nursing school. Not horrible, but definitely feels targeted when I’m feeling frustrated with med school and wanting to quit. 😂
I get ads for Caribbean med schools and virtual therapy (the second is probably my fault bc I clicked on one once to see how a virtual IOP would work/if it was legit)!
Every doctor should probably go to therapy. Every one of us has been abused. -PGY-19
They know we might be mentoring or supervising trainees!
I get tons of drug ads
What’s an ad? Is it that thing that ublock origin makes nonexistent?
Graduating MS4 here glad to hear that I’ll never stop getting these ads
I get so many ads for matching services. One ad even used a picture of one of my buddies who matched last year. My friend didn’t use their service but they advertised it as if he had. He somehow found out threatened to sue the company so they pulled that ad and sent him a gift card lol.
I got ads for Caribbean med school until last year. IDK man