Part Four: Psychosocial Health

This is the random left over blog post. Honestly, this post could be much longer because there are a million awesome articles out there, but I'm trying to be concise (yeah, I realize I'm terrible at it, but at least give me some credit for trying!).

• 20 Things Poor People Do Every Day: There's lots of misinformation out there about poor people and that they are lazy and doing nothing all day. These are the things that are actually done: find food, find shelter, find warmth, try to stay safe, live in chronic pain (and poorer health outcomes), and do everything in their power to stay alive. 
• Appendectomies are Expensive in the US: This person posted his bill for his overnight stay in the hospital after getting his appendix removed on Reddit. Apparently it's about $55,000. His insurance covered the bulk of it, but still. That's a lot of monies! Our healthcare reform isn't perfect by any means, but hopefully it's a step so that people don't have to pay these enormous bills! 
• Med Students Save Lives!: Remember those OSCEs I talked about taking? Well this student at Virginia found out something that was really wrong with his fake patient during one of his OSCEs and he saved his life! Sometimes medical students are idiots (myself included), but sometimes we are awesome too! 
• Inactivity Changes Your Brain: I sort of alluded to this already yesterday. But here's some science to back it up more! Being a lazy bums changes your neurons. And not for the better. Inactivity leads to greater sympathetic nervous activation which may causes higher blood pressure (due to vasoconstriction) and ultimately leads to heart disease. So work your little body...Make Your Day Harder!
• Vaccinations...good or bad?: This is a post from someone who grew up being unvaccinated. And why she decided to vaccinate her children. And why she suggests that you do too! Her parents lived the organic, healthy lifestyle (let's be real...this is not me condemning that lifestyle. I love organic foods!) and yet she contracted measles, mumps, rubella, viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, chickenpox, HPV, and penicillin-resistant quinsy by not being vaccinated. She says, "If you think your child's immune system is strong enough to fight off vaccine-preventable diseases, then it's strong enough to fight off the tiny amounts of dead or weakened pathogens present in any of the vaccines." I someday will be having children and plan to vaccinate them! But here's a side of the argument that you don't often hear! 

All of these things affect health in some way. Take a look! I have lots more posts planned, so keep your eyes peeled!

Part Three: Videos

And now, a bunch of random videos that I've watched over the last month. There's a little something for everyone in this post. Educational to purely entertainment. Hard sciences to liberal arts. It's all in there!

• Tap dance + Beyonce = GOLD.....This is so ridiculously amazing! You can expect me to look this awesome at my recital...(not!)

• Let's make our day harder. This is an interesting video about technology becoming ubiquitous. And how that affects our movements (now we pride ourselves on not needing to move to change the channel, buy clothes, and to talk to people who are 1,000 miles away). This is a movement to "tweak the week" to make it harder...take the stairs, have a walking meeting, etc. Such an interesting concept, especially since I just got out of the cardiac physiology unit!

• Empathy. What is it, how you can get practice it, why is it important? This is one of the most important skills we use as doctors (and doc wannabes!). The key is being vulnerable...being fully human! 

• Halftime with Lee Brice. Okay, this is WAY cool. Pepsi filmed a commercial in Milligan, NE over Christmas break. It's about an hour and a half away from my hometown. They brought in Lee Brice to put on a show (he's a big country star, in case you didn't know that...I didn't until about September of last year). It was a huge deal and tons of free Pepsi. The York High School band and spirit squads filmed a commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl. I wussed out of going to see the concert (hello, once-in-a-lifetime experience...even if it is country music) because it was freeeeeeezing outside. But here's a sneak peak! 

• Derrick Coleman--deaf NFL Seahawks fullback did a commercial with Duracell (ignore the part about them trying to sell you batteries...focus on the part where it's super awesome that a deaf person is in the NFL!). My dear old dad (emphasis on the old) is also pretty much deaf. And the deaf community doesn't get much attention or recognition these days, so I think this is very awesome to have a high profile person representing the community in a good way! PS everyone should worry about their hearing health...ear buds and loud music are NOT good for you! :) 

• Sex Education. Are you a parent? Are you nervous about talking to your kid about sex? Just show them this video! Are you a human being? Could you brush up your knowledge about sex? Or about how to talk about to other humans about sex? Watch this video! It talks about the parts, the "who" people love, losing your virginity (with some conversations about sending naked photos of yourself), consent and rape, sex, protection, and STDs. It uses humor and is medically accurate.

• Sugar! It affects our brains. We are addicted to it! Learn about why! (I promise I will not judge you for consuming sugar while watching...) This video has a nice set of animations and diagrams to help out the scientific mumbo jumbo!

That's all for now! More tomorrow (hopefully!)