The plague doctor has arrived!

Yes, it is I, your resident expert in bubonic plagues, leeches, witch trials, stylish masks with beaks, and all manner of other things involving medieval medicine. Also, I'm a medical student. So, you know... There's that. What's a plague doctor, you say? And why am I creepily obsessed with them? Let's find out together!

THIS fine creature is what was known back in old-timey days as a plague doctor. Plague doctors were different from "general practitioners" or what you would consider normal doctors of the day and age - their only job was to respond to, you guessed it, PLAGUE!

Why would I take upon myself this avatar? Because I'm weird as Hell (I'm sure you never would've guessed that)?

But also because of what it represents for me. I'm a current medical student and aspiring physician myself, and plague doctors embody many of the qualities I hope to bring to the table. First off, they were balls-deep brave (or crazy?), being the only people who wanted to even approach plague victims. The thing that many of the people thought was divine retribution? They ran towards that thing.

Second, they were for the most part servants of the public - they fought the plague, they recorded deaths (first steps towards epidemiology! Yay!), and they worked for the people (often they were commissioned by cities, in fact). You had a few bad apples, like any profession, but this attitude of service is one I strive to embody.

Third, they were relentlessly scientific explorers. Yes, they did bloodletting and leeches and other crap that we would find ridiculous now, but that was the cutting edge at the time - and they were some of the only people around who were allowed to do autopsies, in order to fight the plague. The badass bird masks? Based on "best practice" of the day - the miasma theory that "bad air" carried disease, and if they wore them with aromatics in the masks, they'd be protected. Lunatic now, but hell? I'm sure in a century people will see generalized chemotherapy as just as barbaric as we see their leeches. Not actually sure, on second thought, if this is something I want to embody, or if I just empathize with them on this point (goes doubly so given how much of our medical literature and practice is educated guesses at best!)?

So, there you have it! Excited to be here!

Addendum: Follow me if you're looking to read:

• Weird medical shit I come across or decide to write about.
• Short story fiction.
• Serialized versions (ie, released chapter by chapter) of various books I'm looking to write.
• Centrist/moderate-perspective rants on politics, likely involving healthcare spending.
  *Just straight posts about healthcare economics/healthcare spending and how to Make Medicine Great Again.
• Life advice you probably shouldn't trust.
• Me creating posts that I wish I could send to Past Self to help him (first one's going to be on figuring out the insanity around engagement rings, most likely!)
• Me making posts curating badass Youtube videos, artistry, cute dogs, etc that I just find across the Internet.

FAQs

What the hell? You wrote a whole entry about a plague doctor and didn't once mention that your username is about political centrism. What gives??
Yeah, I don't get myself either. I made my @thelastcentrist account a week ago, and immediately regretted picking that name (no going back now!). But I had originally envisioned making this an entirely political account, where I got to vent my frustrations at being the last seemingly-sane person in my friend group - I'm largely a moderate/centrist US voter, and all of my friends are so far in one direction or the other that they can't even conceive of the other side having validity most of the time. I feel like it's my job to bridge the gap, but being the only one... it's a lonely job. That's why I was going to make this account. And now I'm going to make it about literally everything that floats through my lunatic brain, because why not?

You're weird.
"Being normal is boring!" -- Abraham Lincoln, probably.

What kind of doctor do you want to be?
Leaning towards pulmonary/critical care at the moment - probably going to go internal medicine just to leave my options open. It's that, or run down the orthopedic surgery route, then trauma surgery or spine surgery.

Why not put your real name and face out there for the world to see?
Because I want complete freedom to write whatever I want on here (don't worry, I'm not a Neo-Nazi) and I never want a residency program interviewer to pull up some article I write that he/she/they fundamentally disagree with and throw it in my face as a reason to deny me because of their own biased viewpoints. The unfortunate reality is that if I write about politics, someone's going to disagree strongly enough to mark me down. If I write about mental health and my own struggles, someone will use that as an excuse not to mark me highly. And if I attach my name to either of those, I'll be popping up in Google searches by residency program directors for eternity.

Why should we care about you? You're just a guy hiding behind a creepy avatar of a guy with a bird mask.
"No one cared who I was, until I put on the mask. -Abraham Lincoln. Or Bane. Yeah, definitely Bane.

If I take off that mask, will it hurt?
It will be extremely painful...

You're a tough guy, I'm sure you can handle it-
For you.

Favorite stuffs?
Movies? Captain America: Civil War -- The Dark Knight -- Definitely, Maybe -- Armageddon -- A Quiet Place -- It Follows
Books? Crime and Punishment -- Way of Kings -- The Bible (yawn "That's on everyone's list!" Shut up Jerry, nobody wants to hear it...)
TV? Lost -- New Girl -- Stranger Things -- Breaking Bad

Judging by the things you like, you're literally (the worst person in existence/the dumbest person I've ever met/insert generic insult here).
Eh - I'm not here to make friends with the whole world. I like plenty of other things, like House of Leaves, they just didn't make the immediate list that popped up in my head when I was writing up above.

Tell me something I don't know.
Halo Top ice cream is the greatest substance on Earth (all the ice cream, little of the guilt). The US discussion on healthcare spending ignores the inconvenient fact that when it's normalized for GDP and other variables, we spend a comparable amount to other nations.
Healthcare-debate progressives who point towards other countries and say we should be more like them have failed to acknowledge three very crucial facts that make it virtually impossible for the USA to implement a Britain-style healthcare system.

• European healthcare systems (and most other nationalized models you can think of) were built after WWII - the infrastructure was in ruins already, might as well make improvements while you're rebuilding! ... Yeah, we're not like that. We already have a system that (somewhat) works fine. Consider the difference between adding a second story to a new house you're building, versus taking an existing house and deciding to add a second story. Changing what's already been in place is much harder than building something anew.
• Leaving that factor aside, there's one very big elephant in the room that we don't like to talk about when it comes to European vs. USA spending (and notice European nations' panic at Trump not being a fan of NATO, for this very reason). The European Union's military budget in 2016 was around $227 billion - 1.4% of their GDP. Ours? It was nearly $750 billion aka around 6% of our GDP. We WAY outspend them in terms of the military, and we have treaties, agreements, and longstanding alliances in place that guarantee we'd come to their aid if shit were ever to go down. Translation? The EU nation-states can afford to spend more of their money on domestic budgetary issues such as healthcare, because we're basically providing them with free military forces. Meanwhile, we're footing the bill for them.
• Let's assume 1 and 2 are non-factors. The British NHS would still never happen here. Why? Because the culture of the United States is such that you would never convince the vast majority of the population to accept the massively increased taxation, at a rate comparable to that of European (and particularly Scandinavian) nations, that would allow for such a robust universal healthcare system. I do believe that universal healthcare is possible in the United States - but this, emulating the NHS model? Or Medicare for All? It's not the way...

All that said, here's a doggo pic to lighten the mood slightly -

And, on that note -- @thelastcentrist OUT!

Addendum 2: Electric Boogaloo: If, at a later date, I deem it safe for me to self-disclose (like after I've been accepted to residency maybe?) then I'll make another #introduceyourself post to show you all the real me. Cheers!