Sloooooowdown

The earthquake near Taiwan that occurred on the Tuesday after Christmas, clocking a 7.1 on the Richter scale, meant many things to many people. To Taiwanese residents, the earth under which they had walked all their lives, secure in its fixedness, suddenly betrayed them, shaking buildings, killing two people and injuring at least 42 more, according to this BBC report. To people all over the rest of Asia, the severing of underwater communications cables meant they were cut off from one another. Businesses went into panic, governments scrambled to contain the crisis, and banks rushed to make sure their foreign trading activity was not affected.

And in the midst of it all, somewhere in a sleepy town north of the capital of Malaysia, one lone medic was typing away at his computer when suddenly an error message popped up and ruins his day.

"Connection Lost. Retry?"

That's the beginning of my latest post over at The Differential, Medscape's medical student blog. Do pop over and give it a read. Fortunately for me, my earthquake troubles are over, but for many people in Asia, the efforts to rebuild carry on. My heart goes out to them.

Also, the new season of The Apprentice launched yesterday! I was planning something special here to coincide with the premiere, but unfortunately I haven't seen it yet because my, uh, 'channels' aren't yielding results.


Until then, anyone (and I mean ANYONE) who so much as WHISPERS something that MAY be a spoiler will be killed. Violently. And painfully. I know someone who has a fetish for raccoon-skin hats, long trenchcoats and AK-47s.

Of course, if you have any idea how I can get The Apprentice from way over here, then kindly email me. I might even send over some delicious Cambridge fudge. Pretty please?

P.S. The good doctor over at NHS Blog Doctor has put up his first BritMeds of the year. How he manages to rake up so many British medblogs I have no idea, but one medical student has made it into the year's first edition:

When Dr Crippen was a medical student, he found it embarrassing having to inflict examinations on patients for his benefit rather than theirs. Nothing has changed. This medical student was taken apart by an elderly patient.

Congrats to Calavera of Of Short White Coats And Stethoscopes for doing us med students proud. Go read how she handled a difficult patient in a sterling manner. Faced with the same patient, I would probably have ended up bludgeoning her with my clipboard. (Disclaimer to My Lecturers and Future Patients: Haha I'm kidding, that was just a joke, haha, it's a bit early in the morning, haha, don't kick me out please haha? --Editor)