Academic grade inflation: quite the opposite!
At Edinburgh University, he was secretary to the rugby club and won a gold medal for his essay on hospital infection, spending the prize money on an engagement ring for his future wife, Angela Thomson, a physiotherapist he had met at a church youth group.
I am just trying to do the sums. Times have indeed changed.
The male of the species
Threats | No Mercy / No Malice
When young women feel shame and rage, they don’t turn to AR-15s. The most dangerous person on the planet is a bored, broke, lonely young male. The U.S. is producing too many of them.
As I used to say to med students, melanoma may be one of the commoner cancers in young adults, but it is not nearly as deadly as the male of the species. Next time you let one of them drive you to the beach party you have more than remembering the sunblock to worry about.
Just a great heading
Climate crisis has shifted the Earth’s axis, study shows | Climate change | The Guardian
The massive melting of glaciers as a result of global heating has caused marked shifts in the Earth’s axis of rotation since the 1990s, research has shown. It demonstrates the profound impact humans are having on the planet, scientists said.
Probably not of the same magnitude as that induced by a Welsh victory over England at Cardiff.
Nice to be able to afford to go up market
23rd April 2021. Economics | Museums – Just Two Things
I was also struck that the paper appeared in Nature rather than an economics journal. It wouldn’t surprise me if bypassing the economics journals was a deliberate strategy, since they tend to be a source of conservatism in the discipline, not of innovation.
The story is about a paper by the noted Irish economist Brian Arthur. The paper is here. I suspect there are differences but the example in medicine I always think of is the paper by John Wennberg and Alan Gittelsohn that was bounced by the NEJM but ended up (as in, up, literally) in Science. Sadly, my work has always been shoved in the other direction. Drat!
What we thought was a cat was, to them, a cash cow.
Going to the vet: what happens when private equity invests in a cottage industry | Financial Times
The (great) title is from a comment on the above article (excepts below are from the article).
IVC have been gradually buying up all the vetinery practices near us. The pattern is always the same. A light-touch rebrand, and a massive increase in drug prices. But they make even more money on unnecessary diagnostic procedures. Our pets are well insured. What we thought was a cat was, to them, a cash cow. [emphasis added]
The story is not an unfamiliar one. The traditional professions — or more accurately— the professional model that some of us want to believe is essential to the practice of the professions is being bought out by cheap debt. The article reminds that if you are selling practices, prices are high, but time will tell if the corporate efficiencies just translate as rip-offs or merely getting fat on asymmetry of information. The article shows a group of youngish vets with the comment:
supporters of Europe’s largest vetcare provider say that in an industry traditionally dominated by men, it offers a career path more suited to younger women juggling families with careers.
I suspect that this is just another intergenerational transfer.
On silent pandemics
From a comment in the FT (apologies I can’t find the original source, as comments do not appear searchable).
These new materials are already used in catheters, ventilator tubes and even wound dressings. They are preventing and resolving infections as a result. As we have seen with the coronavirus pandemic, new innovations are vital—this also applies when the pandemic is “silent”.
I like the phrase silent pandemics; they are the ones you have to watch out for.