Rules of Decorum

This is our house. Students run this show. However, this student-driven-exercise is meant to be nurtured and respected. As much as we want to encourage open and honest discourse, we also want to foster a supportive and considerate environment. Therefore, we have some rules of decorum that we would like for you to follow when you visit our blog. We reserve the right to ban any individual from discussion posts who does not follow these rules:

1. be nice

2. be courteous… if you do not know what this means, look it up or refer to rule #1 and you should be fine

3. no curse words, no insults, no nudity

4. no racism, no bigotry, no sexism, no prejudice, no intolerance of any kind

5. REMEMBER: THE RULES OF HIPAA APPLY HERE JUST AS THEY DO EVERYWHERE ELSE

6. try to leave the blog a little bit better than when you found it

Our Mission Statement

1. Prepare students in the preclinical years for REAL difficult situations they will face in the clinical setting.

2. Provide a forum for clinical students to present difficult situations and discuss appropriate actions that should be taken.

3. Engage other health care professionals in discussions about the ethics of our decisions to gain a multidisciplinary perspective.

Our Constitution

I am not going to quote textbooks, but I might quote my weird uncle Larry who likes to tell dirty jokes when it is definitely inappropriate.

This is not going to be Sunday school where I will coax you into giving the
“right” answer. Hopefully, it will be more like an old dive bar where curse words and real opinions often slip out.

I am not going to set up straw men who are easy to knock down with canned responses. If there is an easy answer to a dilemma, it does not need further discussion.

This blog will be a place where real situations that real medical students have faced will be discussed.  I am not going to tell you the “right answer.” Again, if there were always a right, clear-cut answer, this blog would be pointless.

You cannot read enough books to prepare for all situations. In the coming months we will discuss real situations that we have faced that have caused us sleepless nights. Through discussion and input from our outstanding faculty moderators, we will prepare pre-clinical students for future difficult situations that they will face.

We will provide a forum where students can discuss tough choices that they have had to make in the clinical setting.

Finally, we want to expand our paradigm and hear from other health care professionals on how they see things.