The 5 seconds rule

Just a few weeks ago I happened to drop a chocolate sweetie on the floor in the med-school lecture theatre and, to great disbelief of some friends sitting around me, I picked it up and proceeded to eat it anyway.

“Eewww” and “Are you insane?” are possibly the nicest things I got told in that moment and I wondered “Insane? Why insane?” And so the 5 seconds rule came to mind… HA!
The 5 seconds rule states that it is safe to eat whatever bite fell on the ground if it hasn’t stayed there for longer than 5 seconds (presumably because bacteria, dust, mites and all other lurking and disgusting things haven’t had enough time to contaminate said bite).

Obviously pathogens attachment is instantaneous and brushing things off with my hands didn’t do much to limit the damage but now let’s be logical:

- my candy didn’t fall in the middle of the street (I got told that’s where bug gangs have the habit of congregating so beware!) so that wouldn’t be as safe as the med-school floor.
- though as a good “almost doctor” I do have the tendency to try and keep my hands clean, it’s not like they are the most hygienic place where a candy could ever end (you know, before I unwrapped my sweetie I lifted my backpack that was sitting on the floor, a street sidewalk precisely, so bug gangs may have been hitching a ride to school with me)
- I like to keep fit through a variety of activities and so I wanted my immune system to exercise a bit by giving him a challenge… (have some bugs, will ya?!)

Jokes aside, it is proven that a lot of those people who never stress their immune system a little will have the tendency of getting sicker than those who once in a while will indulge in a little “forbidden bite”.
Keeping everything as close to sterile as possible, as many people have now the tendency to do, could actually be more harmful than beneficial. One could get shielded form the most common forms of bacteria or viruses to then get rather sick fighting the infection of something that shouldn’t create too much trouble.

I’m not saying that unless what you have dropped on the floor it’s walking on its own is still edible, but certainly the 5 seconds rule (provided the environment it is applied to is considered “clean”) it is actually a very good and humorous way of helping our immune system to get some muscles and be better prepared for its duties.

Plus honestly, who would want to miss out on a chocolate sweetie?!? I just had to retrieve it!!!

Feeling stressed? Have a dog!

This is what the Law School of Yale seems to think...

Yale, which is renowned for its competitiveness, is starting a pilot programme next week in which student s can "borrow" a dog for half an hour to de-stress.
Monty (and the name is really all we know about the pup!) is a therapy dog, hypoallergenic (or so it's stated) and will be available to play for 30 minutes at a time beginning next Monday for a 3-day trial run.

The law librarian wrote an email to all students advertising this initiative and stating that "it is a well documented fact that visits from therapy dogs have resulted in increased happiness, calmness and overall emotional well-being in people"
They are used in hospitals, communities, schools so why not at Yale?!?

Besides the logistic (does Monty have a secretary filling in his diary with appointments? What if Monty can't be bothered going for "walkies" 5 hours a day? And what about his salary... would a sausage do???) I personally find the idea brilliant!
Therapy dogs have an outstanding temperament, gentle disposition and an incredible degree of friendliness which make them absolutely perfect for such a task as this.

As a matter of fact, what about suggesting to my med-school considering to adopt the same idea? I'm sure many of my fellow students wouldn't mind taking the "furry therapy" for a walk on the beach, playing ball for a bit, going for a stroll in town or just taking a little break on the wooden area in our school yard, lazying in the sun (those 5 days a year when sun shines in Scotland!) enjoying cuddles.

Yale got it absolutely right:

- An introduction to legal reasoning? Check!
- A cute dog? Check!
- A cracking idea? Check

Now let's just hope that Monty won't become over-stressed himself with all of these play dates!!!

The pain charts

I have recently started my merging into Dundee Medical School as there is where I'll go for my clinical years of training.

Of course, being that Tuesday was our first day of the programme and I wanted to be prepared for whatever I would need to face, I thought to look up some of the clinical skills that we have been taught at St Andrews.

Communication skills are, in my opinion, the most important skills you'll ever learn in medicine. You can be a fantastic doctor but if you're not able to communicate properly with the patient all of your science is pointless.

One of the aspects of the communication with the patients that we have to get right and that we are practically brain-washed about is pain.

How do you describe it?
Does it radiate?
What type of pain is it?
Does anything make it better? Or worse?

What brings it on?

Is it continuous? or it comes and goes?
And most of all... can you rate it???

Oh dear... how do you rate pain???
Because if you ask someone like me whose pain threshold is non existent I'll tell you that if you shake my hand too sternly I'm in agony!

But you can ask my brother, who plays basketball with a probably broken finger, he doesn't really complain!

So let's say that pain is definitely subjective.

Doctors have several ways of trying to get out of the patient some sort of pain score and one of my favourites is the pain chart with little faces expressing their degree of discomfort.

So, here I give you the NHS pain chart!

I have 2 main problems with that:

1- Where are the odd numbers? I mean, what if my pain was #7... It doesn't "hurt a whole lot" but "hurting even more" doesn't exactly cut it!

2- Why is #2 smiling?!?!!

So I looked up on internet and researched if there was anything a bit more appropriate.

Maybe we could learn from other countries and see if they had something dare I say "less condescending"?!?

Well, obviously someone had thought pretty much the same thing as I did and designed its own pain chart... Now, this is what I call descriptive!

Have a look and please do tell me if you wouldn't think your feelings of pain to be better expressed by these images!

I commend the creator and had fun matching my own version of the pain scores to the number.

0- Hi, I'm not experiencing any pain at all, I don't even know why I'm here!
1- I am completely unsure whether I'm experiencing pain, or itching or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth
2- I think I may need a plaster

3- This is distressing, I don't want this to be happening to me at all

4- My pain is not messing around man!
5- Ow...ok, my pain is super legit now!
6-Why me???!!!
7- I see a green monster coming towards me and I'm bricking it!

8- I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain... I might actually be dying, help!
9- I am almost definitely dying

10- I am actively being mauled by the green monster I saw at #7
11- I am going to auto destroy at any moment
Too serious for numbers - any comment coming out of the patient's mouth would be most definitely censored!

Of course this chart is meant for fun only but nonetheless, I consider it a possible great addition to the doctor's tools... if anything, it might improve that oh-so-vital relationship with the patient by means of conjuring a smile on both sides!

The strange case of the UFO and the time gain

Have you ever seen a UFO?
Do you even have an idea of what it may look like?

I remember when I was just a little girl, I felt quite disappointed when my dad explained to me that actually UFO wasn't a synonymous of alien space-ship but instead was simply the acronym for unidentified flying object... the definition kind of make it lose all of its charm, don't you think?
Or at least it did for me...

I remember then years later when the TV series "The X-files" came out, there had been a huge surge in reports of UFO sightings, first in the USA, and then in many other places as the series reached other parts of the world...
One has to wonder how easy it is to condition somebody's mind but anyway...
I came across this piece of news today and thought it appropriate to share it here...

It was an unseasonably mild night in late October, in Barnes, south-west London, when Mr Man (I have just decided to call him like that!) took to his garden with a drink defeated by the impossibility to get to sleep...
Apparently, after a few moments of peace, he heard the distant roar of engines getting louder and louder and saw a huge UFO passing right over his house, heading west at great speed.
Mr Man described the craft as a "cigar-shaped vehicle with large projectiles on each side like wings and it seeming to have two very bright lights at the front and a white light flashing round and round underneath", he went on saying that he believed having seen coloured lights at the end of the projectiles and also a line of lights (windows maybe???) along the side but he wasn't quite sure as he was terrified!!!

Mr Man thought of calling the police right away but then decided to leave it to the next day and return to bed where, surprisingly for someone suffering from severe insomnia, he fell asleep immediately.

Well, after such an experience, the morning finally came and he decided to write a letter accounting everything to the Ministry of Defence.
In this letter he also expressed the belief of having been abducted because when he woke up, he realised he had gained a whole hour (the same one he had spent the night before out in his garden pondering the UFO appearance)

Should I really give away the fact that the MoD wrote Mr Man a response explaining that the clocks had gone back the night of the sighting and that would explain his gained hour???

So the poor Mr Man was deprived of his "close-encounter" experience... no real UFO, no need to panic, no abduction... Imagine the disappointment!

Oh, cheer up Mr Man, we're all thankful here, at least you have given us a good giggle!!! :-)