Author: akshay
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Why Politics isn’t for the Honest
This is not a pessimistic post. I’ll explain why honest people can’t do well in politics. And then I’ll also urge honest people to be political. When I say politics isn’t for the honest, I mean that the identity of a politician isn’t for the honest. They cannot win elections on their own. They cannot…
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Don’t Let Them Dehumanize You, Doctors!
The society will try to dehumanize you in various ways. And you will feel pressurized to play along too. Don’t let them do that to you, as much as possible. — Every patient comes to you with the expectation of a complete cure. They do not care that you are human. Reset their expectations. Let…
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Giving up Ideological Purism
I used to be a purist. I would think that socialism is better than capitalism and therefore I should myself shun everything to do about capitalism. I would think that free software is better than proprietary software and use only free software everywhere. And so many other “principled” positions. Then a couple of things happened.…
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Is Science The Only Way of Knowing?
This is continuation of a debate from YouTube. The statement that “Science is the only way of knowing” is correct. But it is also arrogant. The definition of knowledge that we are working with is “justified belief of independent rational observers”. What I argue in the video is that independent rational observers can come to…
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History Taking Through Heart
I was trying out the Daily Rounds app on Android and came across a case description “Unilateral limb swelling in a 51 year old lady. No comorbidities. KFT normal. How to proceed to diagnosis?” This reminded me about how clueless I was about history taking during medical school. I think if I’ve learnt anything well…
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Why Researchers Who Care About Equity Should Use Zotero (and Not Mendeley)
If you are a researcher, chances are that you write papers. And if you write papers there is a good reason for you to use a reference manager (also called citation manager?). If you use a reference manager and you care about equity, there is a good reason why you should use Zotero. Why use…
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How To Stay Sane Online in 7 Simple Steps
The sheer vastness of information online can disorient some people. Fake news and hate makes it even harder for them. These techniques are what I personally use to keep my mind “blissful” despite what is going around me. And yet I get to enjoy all the goodness of internet too. #1: Be ruthless in cutting…
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What Patients Don’t Know About Medical Schools
There are people who assume that doctors who get into medical school through reservation end up as bad doctors. They have no clue how medical school works. I won’t go into the reasons why reservation (or affirmative action) exists. That is one of the easiest ways for governments to “do something” towards inequity in the…
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Want to Predict COVID? Ask the medical officers or lab managers
From the beginning of this pandemic I’ve had very accurate predictions of COVID surge, lull, and fall from two kinds of people – PHC medical officers and lab managers. The PHC medical officers see anywhere upwards of 200 sick people per day and they get to see how many people are coming in with COVID…
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Three Stories On Connecting Health Data
Story 1 There was a small research institute with 20 people. Someone among the staff did an online survey to ask everyone their demographic details (name, age, gender, email address) and their diet. After four months, another person ran another survey. By then there were 23 people in this institute. This surveyor asked everyone their…