The author of Medical School 2020 gave me an update on his training hospital. They have roughly 1,100 beds. They have admitted 24 Covid-19 patients since the plague began. There are currently 7 Covid-19 patients in the hospital. Residents have been working week-on/week-off due to the shortage of cases from which they might learn. “We’re allowed to do elective surgeries as of this week,” he said, “and I thought there would be a huge backlog, but there isn’t. We’re still not busy.”
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I really liked the Medical School 2020 posts. Glad to hear that the author is continuing to hang in there in med school. Any chance he will resume posting or finish the book?
Jack: We are working on it! Though who will read it now? Most of it is not Covid-19-related!
Would seem one lesson from the pandemic is that medical services are over-used. My personal healthcare plan for many years was “let the doctors starve in their offices waiting for the phone to ring”, but that stopped working about age 65. There is probably a happy medium somewhere, but it’s hard to find without transparency of information.
> Though who will read it now?
I hope you and the author don’t feel that way it because it’s magnificent, and I hope he finishes it. Every time I start to think I know anything special or my life is too hard, I read it. I really appreciate you both for not dumbing it down and using all the medical terminology. Everyone who considers dedicating their life to medicine should read it, but the appeal is much broader than that. You really get the feeling that you’re there, in the room.
I guess what they teach you at MIT is that one data point = “typical”.