Add Prometric to my list...

I haven't been to work in a month and I haven't slept much either, all in preparation for today - May 31 - MCAT day. I was beginning to make myself ill with anxiety yesterday, so I decided that I wasn't going to study the day before the test - I would relax, eat whatever I wanted, and...well maybe I'll study just a little.

ring ring

Me: Hello?
AMCAS: Hello, Mr. Saadah?
Me: Yes?
AMCAS: Mr. Saadah, we are calling in regards to tomorrow's MCAT.
Me: Yes - is everything alright?
AMCAS: No - your workstation is down for maintenance and your testing slot has been cancelled.

Long story short, the MCAT is administered by the company Prometric which sets up testing locations at select spots around the city and administers over 3000 different tests (MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, etc...). The workstation to which I had been assigned was having technical issues and so my test was cancelled. I was told to call an 800 number to reschedule.

After waiting for about an hour to talk to someone, I was finally told that the next available slot in Houston was on July 24th - this is the part where I lost it. I did my best to remain calm, especially considering that the person to whom I was speaking was not in any way responsible for the technical issues...I did NOT do a very good job.

Me: Are you serious!? My application is due at the end of June!
Prometric: I realize that sir, but our policy in this situation is to schedule you for another test.
Me: In this situation? This is your screw up! Your company screwed up, your company should fix this!
Prometric: Sir, the best I can do is assign you to another testing facility...give me a moment...nope, all testing facilities within 300 miles are full for tomorrow's test.
Me: THEN LOOK BEHOND 300 MILES!!! This is not some minor inconvenience that's going to mean one less day at the beach on a Disneyland vacation - THIS IS MY APPLICATION TO MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!
Prometric: Sir - there is a slot open in Oklahoma City tomorrow at noon - would you like it.
Me: Oklahoma City? (It took me a second to realize that I knew someone in Oklahoma City - in fact, come to think of it, I'm from Oklahoma City and my family lives there) Yes - I'll take it.

Within four hours on my relaxing day before the most important test of my life, I did the following:
- Bought a ticket to Oklahoma City at full price (don't get me started)
- Packed
- Drove like a bat out of hell to League City to drop my bird off at Becca and Cari's
- Drove like another bat out of hell to the airport
- At some point remembered to call my mom and announce "mom , I'm taking the MCAT in Oklahoma City - no time for questions, please pick me up at the airport in two hours!"

Perhaps the most amusing and telling point of the day occured while going through security.

TSA: Please remove any laptops from your luggage and place them on the belt.
(I place my bag on the belt laptop and all - the belt stops and a manager comes over)
TSA: Sir - is there a laptop in your luggage?
Me: No ma'am.
TSA: Then what's in there?
Me: Just my clothes, a book and a laptop.
TSA: A laptop?
Me: Yes? (lightbulb goes off) OH YEAH - THERE'S A LAPTOP IN THERE.

Two hours later, I was getting a big hug from my mother who had dinner waiting for me and my bed all fixed up. She calmed me down and reminded me that this is nothing compared to the stress experienced on a daily basis by those for whom I am trying to go to medical school. I might add that two of my friends just admitted their newborn baby girl to the NICU - truly, I have nothing about which to complain.

The test went well I think - I'll have to wait a month to find out, but it felt like a practice test and I have been scoring a 30 on those, so hopefully I'll get a 30 on the real thing. That's all I want...a 30 and the chance to help people as only a doctor can.

It's 3am I must be lonely...

It's 3am and I'm studying for the MCAT next Thursday (yikes!) When I study, I like to have a bit of background noise, so I went to YouTube and loaded up the longest video I could find - an hour and a half of 9/11 conspiracy theory lectures.

Now don't get me wrong, I am well aware of the fact that I have not studied the details of the attacks nearly well enough to form any sort of an educated opinion on the theories presented - but I do have a couple of degrees in engineering and I feel compelled to point out one simple fact.

Metal does not have to reach its melting point to fatigue - in fact, it doesn't even have to come close! So why do people keep pointing out the fact that jet fuel burns at below the melting point of steel as though that proves anything?! Take a spoon, put it into the toaster, then take it out with gloves and see how easy it is to bend. Then go look up the melting point of stainless steel and be amazed :-)

I am well aware of the fact that in the age of the internet, anybody with a computer can put their opinions out there for the world to see. However, I am used to very obviously flawed opinions being at least hotly contested...is this one so obvious that nobody bothers to point it out, or am I missing something?

Ok - back to studying the digestive tract (interesting fact of the day - your small intestine has a surface area of about 300 square meters!)

She blinded me with SCIENCE!

One of the comments left recently on my blog reminded me of an anecdote involving a dim scientist and a questionable conclusion:

A scientist placed a frog on his laboratory table and ordered it to jump – it did as it was told and the scientist noted “frog with four legs jumps when told.” He then cut off one of the frog’s legs and again ordered it to jump. Again it did as it was told and again the scientist noted the results in his journal. He repeated this twice more, each time cutting off a leg, telling the frog to jump and noting the results. Finally he cut off the frog’s last leg and ordered it to jump. It sat there staring at him. After repeating the command several times with no success, he noted in his journal ‘frog with no legs cannot hear.’

I remember several instances in my studies over the years when I suddenly understood the mechanics behind something which before seemed almost magical. Examples are the way the body regulates gene expression by using the resulting proteins as inhibitors to the expression itself, the way gravitational tide forces ensure the orbital period of a satellite dampens to its rotational period, or the way hemoglobin’s oxygen affinity decreases with pH, thus ensuring acidic (active) muscles compete more effectively for oxygen. Each time, the universe seemed a bit less confusing. Of course, as is universally true, education only serves to show you just how little you truly know – each discovery only showed me how much more there was to learn.

Having spent the better part of my life trying to learn from those giants who came before me, I find myself increasingly annoyed by one conclusion in particular – I don’t understand it, so it must be divine. Declaring something to be divine because the human race (or worse, just you) lacks the understanding to explain it scientifically is certainly nothing new – after all, divinity has long been used to explain that which science could not (stars were first considered lights fixed to the celestial sphere, then they were solid entities moved by an intelligent force before they were finally understood to be balls of gas governed by the well-understood laws of nuclear fusion). However, the confidence with which those with no scientific training declare misunderstood phenomena to be divine makes me laugh – and that people listen to them makes me nervous.

I don’t expect those who aren’t exposed to them to understand gene expression or gravitational torques any more than I understand tax codes or operatic techniques, but I am consistently astounded by their conclusions regarding the various equilibria which exist in the natural world. Upon observing a ball balanced perfectly atop a hill, they confidently state that some divine entity must have placed it there, never considering that only the perfectly balanced ball remains atop the hill long enough to be observed. The details are more complex than that, but the basic idea is not – in so many physical systems, the equilibrium state is selected for by the natural laws which govern the universe. The presence of spectacular fine-tuning as my commenter put it is evidence of divine intervention only if you choose to ignore some very basic scientific mechanisms.

This brings to mind a larger question – what will be the end result of our collective scientific endeavor? Will science eventually reason away the need for a god, or will it slowly shrink our knowledge gap to a finite set of questions whose answers elude us indefinitely, thereby defining god? This higher philosophical question is one I could spend days discussing – as to those who claim god exists in the holes of their personal scientific knowledge base, you may find a class or two in whatever magic mystifies you to be downright heavenly :-)

Creationism-ed

A conversation from a few minutes ago:

Nicholas: Jane - help me with this question. "In the nephron, amino acids enter the vasa recta via the process of: a) filtration, b) reabsorbtion..."
Jane: ...it's b)
Nicholas: How did you know that? Is it just strict memorization?
Jane: Yes
Nicholas: So I have to memorize which substances are reabsorbed, which are filtrated, which are secreted....
Jane: Yes
Nicholas: That's a lot to memorize!
[long pause]
Jane: Welcome to med school sweetie.

Two weeks of constant studying tends to make one goofy. I am cracking myself up crossing out the word evolved each time I see it and replacing it with the word creationism-ed :-)

Problem not to scale!

I haven't been to work in a week-and-a-half and I have to say, this is great! I am taking the entire month of May off to study for the MCAT on May 31st - I meet my study partner J everyday at the UH library at 7:30am (give or take an hour - usually take :-) and we study all day. I am enjoying this so much - all the more proof that I really should spend my life in school!

Today I took a practice test to see how I was progressing. With about a minute left to finish the physical sciences portion of the test, I had one question left - and I was so confident in the answer that I didn't even bother doing any calculations. See for yourself (click on image to enlarge):


Considering that the HST was launched by the shuttle, and the shuttle's cargo bay is only about 20m long, I checked choice a) and confidently went to lunch. One problem - turns out the MCAT takes some 'poetic license' with real-life systems!

Lesson learned.

Playing smart

There was a saying my father used to use to describe people who got themselves into trouble by trying to treat their own serious ailments - 'playing doctor.' I have many memories of a frustrated physician coming home from the office having dealt with patients who could have been treated for a fraction of the time, pain and cost had they not tried to treat themselves. This was not an issue of pride or profit - it was one of genuine concern. My father is one of the few doctors I know who gave his home phone number out to patients with the plea that they call him before trying to self-medicate - free of charge. At the time, I was a teenager who knew nothing and thought I knew everything...watching him frustratingly sigh 'don't play doctor' under his breath never struck a chord in me.

Years later, I was driving back to Oklahoma having just graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. The drive is long and boring, and I was getting tired, so I pulled over when I saw a nice-looking older man holding his thumb out on the side of the road. He was heading to Tulsa - right along my path - so I invited him in and we began to chat. He was very passionately Christian and as soon as he found out I wasn't, he began to proselytize.

"Did you know" he asked me, "that if the Earth was one mile closer to the Sun in its orbit, it would fall into it - and if it were one mile farther away it would spin off into the darkness of space? If that's not proof there's a God, I'm not sure what is!" I questioned whether or not to correct him - after all no harm was being done by his believing this...but what's the purpose of education if it isn't spread.

"Actually, that's a very common misconception" I began. "In reality the Earth's distance from the Sun varies by over three million miles over the course of its orbit." He had a quizzical look on his face as I continued. "Two body systems are inherently stable - in reality, in order for the Earth to fall into the sun, its orbital velocity would have to be decreased so drastically that its periapsis fell to below the Sun's radius. Likewise - in order for it to 'fly off into space', it's velocity would have to be increased to above a threshold known as the 'escape velocity' which is a function only off the Sun's mass and the Earth's orbital radius."

He looked at me suspiciously before emphasizing "well a scientist friend of mine told me this - he knows what he's talking about." I found myself frustratingly sighing 'don't play rocket scientist' under my breath. I was then that I understood what my father felt.

In the age of blogs and online communities, I find the same frustrations resurfacing more often. The internet is a wonderful tool which has made the world smaller in so many ways. However, one of it's unfortunate realities is that it has changed the process by which knowledge is verified. When you had to go to the library to research something, not only did you often have to read the better part of a book to glean the answer (often ensuring you learned some of the background information) but there was a check on the information made available. In order to make it into a book, whatever was being written had to convince the publisher, who often consulted a board of experts on the subject. Clearly there were ways around this (e.g. publishers with agendas) and there were disadvantages to this system (e.g. ideas took longer to be exposed and tested by the community at large since they had to gain a certain following before being published) - but there was a clear advantage as well. Before the internet, you generally had to know something about a subject before your opinion was advertised to the world.

I'm not saying I want to go back to the way it was and I'm not suggesting any sort of a solution. I'm only pointing out one flaw in a sea of advantages - when every plumber, accountant and lawyer weighs in on the debate surrounding evolution, global warming and stem-cell research and people listen to them as often as they do biologists, geneticists and biochemists, I have to imagine somewhere in a lab, someone is whispering 'don't play biologist' under their breath.