Do as I say

I’m currently on my family medicine rotation. I think the common fear for med students is that they’ll be doing nothing but physicals and colds for 2 months. Perhaps things will change in flu season, but I haven’t done much of either. Instead it seems that everyone I see has the following: hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes mellitus. Put in more common terms, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Put in simplistic terms, too much salt, fat and sugar in the blood. As you’d guess, this trio follows obesity pretty closely. Get rid of obesity and I’d be twiddling my thumbs for much of the day. (That’s not really true, as I’m sure I could fill my day with patients on pain and depression meds, but that doesn’t support this post.)

Which is why I nearly laughed out loud at Grand Rounds last week. Grand Rounds is a lecture doctors can go do once a week if they feel like it. A major benefit of going is that a drug company will buy you lunch. Normally this is pizza, barbeque, subs, burritos, or anything that’s relatively cheap and easy to buy in bulk. Last week our drug rep decided to think outside the box and got us food from The Winking Lizard, a local tavern. Have you ever had tavern food? The spread included the following: pizza, sliders (mini-hamburgers, for non Ohioans), quesadillas, grilled cheese sandwiches, buffalo wings, onion rings, French fries, potato skins and fried ravioli. I didn’t instruct patients on diet changes for the rest of the day.