Archive for December, 2007
Alcohol & Cognition – Binge Drinking Compromises Learning Abilities
By psychiatrist Paul Steinberg The more we have binged — and the younger we have started to binge — the more we experience significant, though often subtle, effects on the brain and cognition. evidence for the impact of frequent binge-drinking comes from some simple but elegant studies done on lab rats by Fulton T. [...]
How to Sleep Better
1. Try not to worry about how much you sleep. Such worrying can… contribute to…”learned insomnia”. Learned insomnia occurs when you worry so much about whether or not you will be able to get adequate sleep, that the bedtime rituals and behavior actually trigger insomnia. 2. Don’t force yourself to sleep. The very attempt [...]
Diagnosing Color-Blindness
the most popular method involves the Ishihara Color Test [which uses] dots of different sizes and colors that form a number that is visible only to people who are not colorblind. the gene for the red and green receptors are on the X chromosome, [and is repsonsible for] the most common form of colorblindness [...]
New Cyanide Antidote
University of Minnesota Center for Drug Design and Minneapolis VA Medical Center researchers have discovered a new fast-acting antidote to cyanide poisoning. Current cyanide antidotes work slowly and are ineffective when administered after a certain point, said Steven Patterson, Ph.D., principal investigator and associate director of the University of the Minnesota Center for Drug [...]
Prepare for a Big Exam
Kendra Campbell shares valuable test prep advice: 1. Make a schedule, and try to stick to it. Having a schedule provides you with structure, and is a good way to prevent falling into the trap of running out of time in the end. It also ensures that you always have a task at hand. 2. [...]
Student Loan Deferment Program Remains Intact
The student loan deferment program is intact for now. News can be found on the AMA website here. Basically what this means is that at least for now and until the fall (an unspecified month) of 2008, we will be able to take advantage of the economic hardship deferment. The subsidized student loans will not [...]
Manage Finances with Less Effort – Mint
Most medical students face financial pressure without the time required for planning and tracking. Mint is a integrative solution for efficient money management. Mint compiles your financial activity in one location accessed with one login. Teach Mint to automatically categorize your financial transactions, and budgets become effortless. Pros: Account creation is easy & Mint can [...]
Time Management Tricks
By Marci Alboher 1. Tame the e-mail beast. You never hear anyone say they spent the whole day taking care of voice mail, and e-mail shouldn’t control you in that way either… I adopted a system. Mine is a combination of lessons from David Allen (touch each piece only once and dispose of it) and [...]
Med Student's Drug Guide – Part 2
SDN’s Alison Hayward, M.D. and Sarah M. Lawrence present a concise guide to narcotics: Heroin marketed by Bayer from 1898-1910 as a cough syrup and as a cure for morphine addiction, until the public discovered that heroin is merely an acetylated form of morphine which is not only converted to morphine as it is metabolized [...]
Med Student's Drug Guide – Part 1
SDN’s Alison Hayward, M.D. and Sarah M. Lawrence present a concise guide to narcotics: Alcohol Alcohol is a CNS depressant that appears to act mainly as an agonist on GABA receptors and a blocker at NMDA receptors. It is more correctly referred to as ethanol or “EtOH” because there are other types of alcohols, including [...]