Did you ever believe in dissociative identity disorder (DID)?
It doesn’t matter whether I or you believe in it. One can choose to believe that platypuses do not exist. Does it change whether they actually do? When it comes to the general population, I really have gotten over caring if society believes that DID or Complex PTSD, etc, etc exist. I admit it does still bother me when they assume that it looks like crap from films and media. It might be better if you don’t believe in it at all.Mental healthcare professionals who still refuse to believe in it, however….now that is a huge issue. It’s unacceptable, irresponsible, egotistical and harmful. Yet there are still, to this day, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc who are so out of touch, so ingrained in their own mind, that they continue to deny that DID is real, even after having been in the DSM and ICD’s for years. (There’s a whole ‘society’ who wastes breath and energy every single day trying to ‘prove’ that DID is a myth. They do have one thing correct: the burden of proof is theirs. So spin your wheels if you must.). Even in spite of millions who live with it daily. In spite of those who have spent their lifetimes scrutinizing, studying, researching, and treating it. There are still those who are stuck in the 80’s pushback over the ‘false memory’ planting crap and refuse to look objectively at facts. As a result, it is uncounted (literally) how many people remain undiagnosed and untreated for DID (and other dissociative disorders). Mental health professionals who don’t believe in DID are like medical physicians who refuse to believe in Gout or Celiac disease…both of which ALSO affect about 1–2% of the population, just like DID. In fact, in the pop culture of anti-gluten, celiac is probably now shown to be much more prevalent than originally believed. Why is that? Because more people are getting it? Or because the medical field has now studied it, accepted it, recognized it, and has ways to treat it?Do I believe in DID? Well since I dance with it and watch it out my window of DDNOS….I know it exists. It isn’t a matter of ‘belief’.
What are some great medical "field trips" for a medical perspective group of teens?
Hi, I'm an events coordinator for a group at my high school called "MLOT" (medical leaders of tomorrow). So, my job is to organize speakers and events. I have plenty of speakers and a few ideas of activities we can do. But I want to know what else is out there. any answer is cool! even if its obnoxious! thanks
How would you genetically engineer yourself, given the chance?
I have no known mono-genetic disease, which would be a good reason to employ genetic engineering (e,g, for muscular dystrophy, BRACA cancer disposition).IMHO these type of clearly established genetically caused diseases are the only ones warranting any genetic engineering in the future.We just do not understand the other genetic connections all that well. 23and me was blocked from stating they could make medical predictions, rightly so, by the FDA. All the tools we know of have about a hundred times more side effects than intended effect (for one intended change we change 99 other sequences). In the first “artificial” bacteria, we realised that the most “primitive” organisms have 30% of genes that are essential for their survival, and we predicted those to be irrelevant or redundant for them. We are a lot more complex, and alleles we think are “bad” might be very useful to have in other conditions.I think we do not have the right to “order” blond, or red headed , curly or straight haired, or black or white babies, or babies with green blue or brown eyes. If we can not accept them how they are, we should not have kids.Due to lack of technologies and understanding how our genomes work, we are easily 40–100 years away from “improving” our genome, my estimates.
Do you think cancer is a business?
My mom just recently passed away after battling with breast cancer for just 7 months. I also used to be a practicing physician training on Internal Medicine, which includes Oncology.As a daughter, it really does feel like it is. It's hard enough to manage everyone’s emotional well-being, much harder to get the finances/grants in order for us to be able to afford medical care. Whether you have money or not, it is quite an ordeal trying to assess what you can & cannot afford. Except, this time, it's life. Truthfully, this is the only time in my life that I wished I was disgustingly rich, even by “not so ideal” means. This made cancer really feel like a business. Life suddenly just seemed like that Hermes bag or Lamborghini you've been drooling for.As a doctor, I feel it is unfair that some people think the whole cancer treatment regimen is just a scam — that if you just drank or ate certain kinds of supplements, it will all go away — that we doctors just want to earn off of your misfortune. You have no idea how heartbreaking it is to meet and manage a cancer patient, as well as their loved ones. Cancer is the great equalizer. You almost cannot buy your way out of it. As doctors, we see so much pain and suffering in the world that we wish there’s no sickness that exists. You have to be incredibly heartless and soulless to see it as a business.I wish I can defend the pharmaceutical companies for pricing these drugs the way they do, but R&D cost them so much. So yeah, it is a business, but a well run business. Soon they will know more about cancer. Soon they'll find their way around it. But until then, everything will be costly and, as a business, these companies need to keep their lights on.Now, my biggest pet peeve, companies marketing alternative cures for cancer. They say if you can't help, then just don't harm. While I think most supplements are useless at worst, these companies still siphon money out of people's pockets that they could use however they want (be it chemotherapy or ticking items off their bucket list), with the promise of a cure. These cancer patients have quite limited quality of life left. In my belief, it takes a special kind of evil to steal from them.