Misinformation: Medical School Edition
How the COVID narrative was able to cut the medical school lunch line.....
As a second year med student, we are constantly deep throating out of date information. The rationale is as follows:
learn what the board exams say even though a lot of it is wrong during year 1-2.
you’ll learn what real medicine feels like during year 3-4. take your second board exam.
residency is where you can forget all that garbage and we’ll teach you actually what you need to know. but oh ya, take your 3rd board exam. Now you’re a doctor and can actually learn current practices and breakthroughs in your selected field.
The resulting process is less enlightenment and more… survival by submission…..
Med School Expectation V. Reality:
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the process. The resulting graduating class will likely be tough, committed, and really good at memorizing loosely connected bits of information. And maybe if you work on research during your 4 years as a student, you will be exposed to conflicting ideas and maybe even practice some critical thinking in deciding which viewpoints make the most sense with the available data (unlikely, I know). And don’t forget all those big words for fuck’s sake! Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism! Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis! Well worth the $300,000.00!
But then came the COVID “facts”
It has been said that medical research can take nearly 20 years to get into medical practice, and probably another 5 for exam writers to update the boards (my guess). So it’s understandable that what we learn in class goes something like this:
Prof: “Memorize everything about the drug digoxin because boards love to test on it, and then never bring it up to your preceptors on rotation because they will think you are an idiot”
Fair enough. It’s probably the same reason we learn about Sarcoidosis in every block, even though we’ll likely never see it. These drugs and pathologies affect many organ systems and require a solid medical foundation to understand the intricacies.
But then came the COVID “facts”…… Amazing how these facts were able to cut the lunch line, ahead of decades of medical breakthroughs, and get tossed into our shit sandwiches to be slow-chewed and savored by us second years.
I thought I’d share some of my favorites I’ve encountered since the past semester. Mind you this is July 2022 thru January 2023 that these statements were presented during various lectures.
“SARS-CoV2 is zoonotic” - the better of our two micro profs (the other micro prof one still blames those pangolin-ferret orgies). I guess you can redefine “zoonotic” to mean bat-derived-human-engineered-virus and “intermediate host” as serially-passaged-humanized-mouse-pulmonary-epithelium-petridish. But that would be like describing your experience of getting gang banged by an army of midgets while they laughed at your middle school yearbook pictures and facetimed your grandma as “made love”. Potato, potato.
“The mRNA COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe disease AND stopping transmission” - the shittier of our two pharm Profs during our respiratory block in November 2022. How’s that working out for you, Israel? Taiwan? Australia?
“There is zero evidence of efficacy for hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, fluvoxamine, vitamin D, or zinc in treating COVID” - that same pharm Prof…. ZERO evidence… like saying there was ZERO dissidents during Stalin’s rein. Can’t argue with facts like that.
“The COVID vaccine trials were great but look what happened. People didn’t take the vaccine so now we still have COVID” - internal medicine Prof from YESTERDAY’s lecture! Can’t make this shit up. Her point was in relation to why clinical trails use the “intention to treat” ITT number on analysis as to reflect real world efficacy which will be lower due to dropout. Is this why we are seeing negative vax efficacy now a days??? Fucking antivaxxers! First they made our shots not work, now they are making them harmful too??
“COVID is spread from droplets of an infected person.” - pathology prof. He probably feels extremely safe eating at a salad bar. Or maybe he’s holding onto this tweet from the early days:
Aerosolized transmission has been admitted at my school now, but I have a feeling that the rest of the facts that eventually replace the “facts” will take the normal route of 20+ years to get implemented into medical school curricula. And that maybe wishful thinking.
Yes there are lots of wild things that I will get into in the future, masks included.
Good grief! This list is a great beginning; I’d love to hear more like it in a future article. I wonder if/how mask wearing is supported in your med school.