Re: Pharmaceutical representation

Pangloss, I bring you good news from the halls of academe. The money changers have been driven from the temple (the drug reps can't go to Southwestern Medical School anymore). Probably evidence of my philosemitism, but I always enjoyed a good money changer. I was walking down a hall in the Psychiatry Clinic as a resident when the Sandoz rep called out 'Freud said Mellaril is the best phenothiazine.' In preSNL days, that wasn't bad. We had one of those Medical Ethics Lectures this year about the evils of drug marketing. Evidencing my easy cordiality, I said to the lecturer in a question/statement that I felt like I was at like an AA meeting about to say "I am a Doctor. I have lost control of my relationships to drug representatives.. Whereas in fact I had been reminded of Buspar's ability to rescue patients from tachyphylaxis to antidepressants, a fact that had been useful to innumerable patients (and not used by many doctors)." He went on to drivel that 'the residents in his program weren't using lithium.' And he's the boss (sad to say)! Speaking of bosses I sat down next to an old one (secular Jewish bosses not usually getting uptight when you do that), asked him what he thought at the end. "They (the drug reps) are too restricted." George was not contentious but not intimidated either.

I may start cheering Sunni like the Razorbacks yell 'Soooeee'!

mathematics and medicine

Differential equation and precision at a dose in the radioimmunoassay and using comparisons of statistical power to see what was most biologically significant for the offspring in sequelae to pre-eclampsia are the two topics I have gotten into in relation to mathematics and medicine, a topic brought up by Dr. Helen. This discussion reminds me of 2 courses I took that were like the ideal college experience, an experience like the lines in Ode to a Grecian Urn, Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty, That is all you know on earth and all you need to know, with the emphasis on truth. One of them was Dr. Wall's calculus course at UT Austin, about which perhaps more later.

'Buying off the opposition' might be seen as appropriate listening to the complaints about a changing economy impacting people. It's focus on long term workers with a firm is correct. There are benefits in trade for the body politic but, like dancing, it can also be awkward.