They told us that for nursing school then it was all middle school level ratio and proportion (admittedly with multiple ratio steps like when you’ve ratioed the right volume of the dose but then you need to convert that to the gtt of your drip kit). The only real equations needed were three (maybe I’m forgetting one) that you could just memorize for the week then forget again until next semester. Two were °F to °C / °C to °F with one inverted ratio +/- the constant. The other one was BSA with two variables but you don’t have to solve for one or the other they’re both just measurements you get from the patient and plug in.

…but then you realize that the only acceptable score on that test is a 100% (some programs will drop you if you get anything less than a 100% on the drug dose test after two tries) and that what nursing school is actually looking for is both accuracy and precision. You’re doing a relatively basic but fundamentally logical, and more importantly highly repetitive puzzle 25 times in a row in an hour and if you make even one error you fail. I had to create a whole specific mental technique to beat my ADHD into submission enough to 100% that test (honestly half of what nursing school taught me was ultimately ADHD / attention management techniques, which it turns out is actually also most of being a nurse). Like the EMR does basically all of the math these days but being aware of where my attention is and why and how to nudge it where it needs to be has been suuuper useful.

Edit: BMI! That was the equation I was forgetting about. Weirdly it’s mostly useful in population health but also if you’re under a certain BMI on admission the EMR starts suggesting a diet consult every time I open that chart until I either document a reason to permanently override it or just put in the consult so that the dietician can immediately decide whether or not to start loading them full of protein shakes. Really important for the seniors if they go into the hospital with 0 chub they’re probably not coming back out alive.

“Society is doomed for one very simple reason: it takes dozens of men working months with millions of dollars in material to build a building, but only one dumb-ass with a bomb to bring it down.” – Jason Pargin, John Dies at the End

Yeah I picked the keep messenger option when I deleted my Facebook because I need to be able to get back in touch with my past work connections and a lot of them that’s the only consistent contact info I have for them. I don’t even really need references as much as I need to be able to scout out which places are too sketchy to bother with (I work in a licensed profession where I can lose that license if I let a sketchy outfit put me in the wrong kinds of situations.

These bathroom gender signs are getting out of hand.

I was explicitly taught google search skills in nursing school. It focused on how to look for results from major medical journals, the CDC / FDA, articles written by well known MDs/DOs specialists, and how to find manufacturers’ manuals / YouTube tutorials for obscure medical devices. I was explicitly taught that my future was probably going to include looking up the manufacturer’s YouTube channel to find out how to access my cancer patient’s obscure chest port by a 60y/o instructor who clearly voiced how insane that was compared to her work experience.

For better or for worse AI’s gonna end up in class somehow too, I’m just hoping it’s late enough down the line that it’s been standardized to super basic shit like fuzzy matching search results and advanced grammar / spellcheck. One of our sister hospitals is trialing a service that can generate a flowsheet column for review from listening to a narration of a head-to-toe and I don’t immediately hate that. Actually you know what would be a really cool use? Fuzzy matching name alerts in the unit patient list. Had two obscurely spelled patient names that sounded very similar the other day with a matching last initial that didn’t trigger name alert highlighting on the board. An llm might be able to catch the sound-alike with a little more flexibility than the current algorithm.

Let’s say you’re making a tincture out of some grass or berries or flowers or bark or whatever that seems to fix your headache really well. It tastes kinda gross but you’ve figured out how to steep it in boiling water then simmer it down into a syrup that you can throw back as one quick gulp.

You gotta be careful with the strength though, you’ve noticed that if you boil it too long you (or your patient) start bruising a bunch and their cuts bleed for a really long time or one or two might even have died. Alternately, steeping / simmering too long might actually cook off whatever substance you need and make it weaker.

It’s not too hard to get the volumes consistent batch-to-batch, you just use the same measuring vessel every time or the same counter weights on your scale, but the timing is difficult. You need to steep then simmer it for the same amount of time each time to produce consistent results. This is, say 500 B.C. or so (or any other time period in history where stovetop timers aren’t really a thing)–

–so you sing a little song or prayer or poem while you stir. It takes you roughly the same amount of time to recite it each time, so you know you’ll be getting roughly the same strength each time. Another option is you can burn a candle with a metal weight stuck through the wax at a given height then wait for it to clatter onto the metal plate you’ve got it set on.

You might even write down these measurements and which song has the right length or what type of candle burns as the right speed. Then when the judge in town wants your dead husband’s land and is mad that you told his wife that other dudes have no problem making their wives orgasm they’ll raid your house, find your recipe book, and use it as evidence at your trial before burning you for witchcraft.

Best of luck!

A critique that doesn’t take into account that there is a direct observer inside the box: the cat.

I also love that book so you’re not special. Take that.

oooh that’s a thought. I thought it was gonna be more like what their poop / excretions smell like because maybe some of them smell like those things they don’t like but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way around?

The good bit from the article (not that the methodology isn’t interesting):

What mosquitoes did – and didn’t – like

Each species showed clear preferences when it came to the odors and skin bacteria.

Aedes aegypti showed a slight preference for men over women, while the other two mosquito species did not discriminate on the basis of sex. The reasons for this are not clear, and the differences in odors and skin microbes between men and women were too great for us to tease out any individual factors driving mosquito attraction.

Aedes aegypti preferred people that had less of certain odors like cyclic alcohols, which are ingredients in some fragrances and cosmetic products. But they were attracted to people on whom Staphylococcus bacteria was more abundant. Meanwhile, lower attraction was associated with certain Pseudomonas bacteria.

Aedes albopictus was a little less picky, preferring people with plenty of odors. They particularly sought out people with high amounts of organic compounds called ketones. One of their favorite ketones was mesityl oxide, which has a sweet, honeylike odor. These mosquitoes also preferred people with more skin microbes, particularly when bacteria like Streptococcus intermedius and Anaercoccus octavius were in higher abundance.

But they also avoided certain bacteria, like the Mogibacterium genus. We suspect that these bacteria may produce odors that these mosquitoes don’t like.

Much like Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefasciatus picked participants that had fewer odors overall. They were attracted to monoterpenes like alpha-pinene, which are organic compounds often found in essential oils.

Interestingly, there were no bacteria that were associated with high attraction for Culex quinquefasciatus, but there was a high abundance of the bacteria genus Actinomyces on the participants that were low attraction to these mosquitoes.

The results weren’t all differences: Some odors and bacteria were attractive across all three species. For example, all three were attracted to participants with the odor chemical ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, a fruity scent often found in fragrances. And all three species were less attracted to participants with lots of the odor 1-penten-3-ol, a chemical typically used in fresh- or crisp-scented products.

We also found that some skin bacteria were attractive across all three species. For example, people with more Corynebacterium kefirresidentii living on their skin were highly attractive to all the mosquitoes.

Interestingly I have a fair amount of patients who cry more as they’re coming out of their depression than when they were in the thick of it.

I was gonna say, if your other options are poverty / prison, this isn’t actually a bad deal practically speaking. Not gonna get into the ethics of military service other than to say blaming individuals for trying to escape poverty isn’t the answer. When I teach about chronic institutionalization in a psychiatric context, the military is one of the susceptible demographics alongside prison and long term hospitalization.

Canada.ca > Canadian Security Intelligence Service > CSIS Jobs > Available Jobs > …“Scientist.”

I was gonna say, those beans aren’t horny, they’re being molested.

I made myself a password generator where you input how long the password needs to be, + other requirements (length, number, special characters (there’s an input box for which ones are allowed) then it subtracts the number / special character from the total required length, chooses a random combo of 3-7 letter words that will make exactly the required length, then adds back in a random number and special character and capitalizes one of the words. Probably not as safe as a completely random password but waaay easier to remember. Would probably be way better even from someone who knows how to actually code because I know juuust enough to vibe code something small like this for personal use the only programming language I actually know is turtle so I understand the basic logic but not like. Syntax or anything.

There’s basically two side effect profiles:

1. It makes you fat, sleepy, confused, constipated / diarrhea / both, and your genitals stop working, but possibly in a different way than your usual everyday hell so maybe it’ll be a little better?

2. It only has one side effect that only happens 0.00001% of the time: instant horrifyingly painful death.

Uber, lyft, etc also do a lot of hospital-to-home transport for otherwise ambulatory / self care patients. Wondering if theyre gonna stop picking up my Psych patients too.

o hai

[email protected]

[email protected] lol

I think this reference might predate the internet, brb gonna do some research.

Ok so according to this, the predecessors to the internet are older than this (1975), but the internet as we know it is much younger.