Cat invasion to Come

After careful consideration and a quantified analysis of how much time I'll spend at home next spring while I study for step I of the USMLE, I decided to get a cat.
Me, with a cat? I've always hated pets. Well, over the summer, I spent some quality time with a dog named Bear who changed my mind about pets. Bear belongs to a pediatrician I worked with over the summer. I borrowed Bear to hike with me, then when I went to visit the doctor at her house, Bear wanted lots of attention. It was endearing. I like dogs, but eventually rotations will start, and I won't have time for a dog, but a pet at home will be fun to have. So I decided an elderly cat will be the best thing.



I went to the Albuquerque animal shelter and picked out a lovable 11 year old female cat, or so I thought. This morning I received a phone call informing me that what they thought was an un-spayed female is actually a neutered male. Kitty has lots of fur, mistakes can be made. And the cat has advanced dental disease. Bummer. I have decided to pick him up anyway because he was so friendly. He looked out of his cage at me wanting my attention, and he purred when I held him. He is a grey bundle of hair, skin, and bones, and he has intelligent green eyes. At the animal shelter, if things don't work out with your new furry friend, you can take him back within 30 days and get the adoption fee credited toward the adoption of a different animal. Cats over three years old are currently only $10, which pays for vaccinations, fixing, and a microchip for identification, and you get a referral for one free veterinarian visit. What a bargain! Homecoming photos and an entry on cat allergies will follow shortly.

Frozen yogurt everywhere!

I went to San Diego to visit friends, and they told me about a fad centered in southern CA, frozen yogurt. This isn't TCBY or Golden Swirl, though I liked their yogurt. This new trend features tart yogurt, yogurt that still smacks of bacteria, although I don't think acidophilus is an extremophile, so I don't think it survives in frozen yogurt. We sampled three places: Pinkberry in Hillcrest, Yogurt World in Clairmont, and Yogurt Land in PB. Among the three places, the nutritious value of the yogurt, calories, and the amount of sugar was consistent, ranging from 11-20g of sugar for various flavors. Surprisingly, the plain yogurt has the most sugar. Alegra explained this adequately, pointing out that dark chocolate is often higher in sugar than milk because more sugar is needed to overcome the bitterness. The same is true for the plain yogurt. To cut to the chase, the winner was Yogurt Land.

Pinkberry

Pinkberry had the best tasting, but most expensive yogurt. They featured three snobby flavors: green tea, pomegranate, and plain. The yogurt was creamy and tart, but it was not self-serve, so it lacked what I now think of as the "frozen yogurt experience". The toppings were very high quality, and included kiwi, blueberries, strawberries, and candy and nuts.


Why so big for so little, cup?


Lovely yogurt and toppings behind the counter.


Small portions, but tasty and enjoyable.

Yogurt World

Yogurt World had many flavors, including taro, bananas foster, birthday cake, and green apple, and they have large signs proclaiming the health benefits of yogurt, including making the lactose intolerant lactose tolerant. Some of the machines did not have yogurt, but ice cream. This was not labeled, so it was slightly misleading if the customer only wanted yogurt rather than custard ice cream. Also, the toppings were not as high quality as those at Pinkberry. But at 38 cents/ounce, you can fill your cup. I recommend chocolate Pebbles to top your yogurt.


The orange decor, signs, and self-serve machines of Yogurt World.


Got ailments? Get yogurt.

Yogurt Land

Yogurt land has the best-priced yogurt: a mere 30 cents/ounce! They had about a dozen flavors (their tart blueberry is delicious) and they are self-serve. You can pig out on samples because the shop is run by college and high school students who don't give a rat's ass about the business. The toppings are nicely arranged and labeled, and they are also self-serve. The place was hopping at 10pm on a Monday night. Yogurt Land also claims to "build better skin". I believe yogurt can also fix our economy. Probably indulging in lots of samples will not.


A blurry treat.


The full shop.

Both Yogurt World and Yogurt had tasty yogurt, although the plain tart yogurt was not quite as good as that at Pinkberry. However for the price difference, Pinkberry loses. Yogurt Land has good yogurt and toppings at a great price, and Yogurt World is worth a visit for good yogurt and funny signs.


Crazy concoction for < $7 at Yogurt World. This would have been ~$5 at Yogurt Land. Only the wealthy could afford so much yogurt at Pinkberry in our bleak financial era.

Prostitution: It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

I had a discussion last week about prostitution, which brought up the question, what percentage of men have slept with a prostitute? I don't know anyone who has slept with a prostitute, but my circle of friends may not be a microcosm of the world, so I asked other people, the more liberal people I know who wouldn't take being asked this question out-of-the-blue strange. These are some of the answers I got to the questions, do you know anyone who has slept with a prostitute, and what percentage of men do you think have slept with a prostitute:

"I know a couple of older, gross men, I would guess 10%."
"You know how men are, a whole bunch of them. No one has ever told me they have, but they probably wouldn't tell me."
"I don't know anyone. (After some thought) No wait, I do. Two military guys. Maybe 10-25% overall?"
"In my circle of friends, who are very open, I know a few. I bet it's 70% over a lifetime."
"A whole lot, in fact, I would be a prostitute if I had the right build. There is a huge market for men who sleep with men and men who sleep with transvestites in Albuquerque."
"Maybe 10 or 20%? No one I know."
"No one I know, oh I do know one guy in the army, maybe 15%?"
"I don't know anyone. No idea. Interesting question."
"No one I know has, but I did know a friend of a past girlfriend who worked at a massage parlor. She was kind of trashy, but then so was my girlfriend."
"Lots of military men, and people stranded in the Nevada desert over the summer."

Most people didn't know anyone personally. The people who guessed high fell into two categories: those who think poorly of men and those who think themselves worldly. People think men in the military and truckers are the most likely to pay for sex. But this was a small sample size, so I searched more broadly for the answer, not only on google, but also on Pubmed and the Kinsey site. I found that in the US in 1994, ~16% of men said they had slept with a prostitute in their lifetime. Worldwide, the numbers vary from 7-39%, with Spain holding the highest percent. This number has decreased from Kinsey's time, likely because many more people have premarital and casual sex, reducing the demand for paid sex. I could not find values on specific populations.

I also found that contrary to the open-minded liberatarian view, while prostitution in a vacuum may be defensible, the reality is rather grim, with even prostitutes in legal brothels in Nevada being dissatisfied at having to fork over much of their profit to the house, having to defend themselves if they want to refuse a client, and having to pay high prices on-site for their weekly health exams. Prostitution leads to human trafficking and exploits people who have very often been abused in the past. The majority of prostitutes are raped or beaten at least yearly while working. Most prostitutes start working at the age of 14 or 15. So, I am anti-prostitution, and also, I think the US laws should change to match Sweden's, where it is legal to sell sex, but illegal to buy sex, which means that the only people who can be arrested or fined are the people creating the demand, the "Johns".

In our era of more open and casual sex, who would go to a prostitute? Men who want to get whatever they want with no complications. Who would want to sleep with someone that doesn't want to sleep with them, but is doing it for money? It seems to me that prostitution, whatever happens in The Secret Diary of a Call Girl on Showtime, intrinsically sets up a scenario of disrespect. Remember the movie Pretty Woman? Really, how did that movie get funded? The scene from Leaving Las Vegas between Elizabeth Shue and the assholes in high school is closer to the truth. While prostitution may ideally be a transaction between two consenting adults, it most often is not. And places where prostitution is legal still have lots of illegal prostitution underground. The whole enterprise contributes to the horrors of human trafficking. The UN has an organization against human trafficking that accepts donations, should you feel inspired to help: http://www.ungift.org.

Rather than carefully citing my article, I will list some interesting articles:
Scientific American: Why Do Men Buy Sex?
Stories From the Sex Trade, on PBS
A newspaper article from New Zealand, which legalized prostitution in 2003.

New Adventures in Med School

Last week, I performed a neurological exam on a real patient in a real clinic, alone! The situation was quite surreal, involving over-age adoption and a blind monk, but I cannot go into the details due to confidentiality. I was allowed to perform the exam by my supervising physician's assistant, primarily because it was not necessary.

On Sunday I witnessed several autopsies. Being a fan of the X-files, I have seen Scully carry out several autopsies, however this situation was completely different, very smelly, and also rather surreal. I would not recommend viewing one.

I'm now in the third week of neuroscience, and I'm starting out this block much better than previous blocks. Who knows, maybe it will continue to go well!

Bikram's Yoga

I tried out Bikram's Yoga for a month. I did feel like it worked out my muscles and made me more flexible, but it is too freakin' hot! Bikram's yoga is a very regimented yoga, consisting of a series of 26 moves performed in the same order in a room heated to 104 degrees F. During my last session, a woman lost her balance and fell down, and the instructor didn't even stop to inquire if she was okay until the natural break in the routine, about 20 minutes later. This despite the woman laying down and not getting back up, and saying "ow ow". It left a sour taste in my mouth, which is unfortunate, because it was only the red-headed instructor with short hair that works at Bikram's downtown in Albuqueruque. The other instructor's were quite nice. Maybe sometime I'll post a picture of myself in a pose.

World Focus, for Americans

I've caught a great show on PBS a few times, in Albuquerque it comes on at 5pm. It's called World Focus, and it's a 30 minute news show designed to inform Americans about world events. So if you don't know who Mugabe is and what is going on in Zimbabwe, don't be embarrassed, tune in online! There is lots of coverage on Africa, health crises, and other regions left off the networks. worldfocus.org

AIDs patient cured in Germany

A patient with both leukemia and HIV was cured in Berlin, by receiving hematopoetic stem cells (the basic cell that gives rise to all your blood cells) from a match who was CCR5-. First, the patient had intensive chemo- and radiotherapy, then received a bone marrow transplant.

There is a high risk for the patient with a 10-30% chance of death from having your immune system and bone marrow cells wiped out before the transplant. Still, this is fascinating.
NYtimes Article