A Final Word on Epidemiology

This time last year I was in knots of excitement over starting the DNP program and had no idea I was in store for one of the most challenging and frustrating courses since Mr. Wilhelmi's 7th grade science class (I contend his leaf identification test is still the most difficult exam of all time). So in honor of Epi memories of yore, and since I am stuck with the textbook which couldn't even pass "acceptable" status on Amazon buyback, I would like to share the following quotes:

"People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support rather than for illumination."—Mark Twain

"Epidemiology is nothing to hang your hat on. Correlations may indicate something about populations, but if you, yourself, find you exercise better at a particular time of day, they are almost useless." - Mark Sisson

"To every complex question there is a simple answer … and it is wrong."—H.L. Mencken

"Of course we don't know what we're doing, that's why it's called research."—Albert Einstein

"The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with" - Anna Quindien

"Being approximately right most of the time is better than being precisely right occasionally."—Anonymous

"Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts."—E.B. White

"Chance favors the prepared mind."—Louis Pasteur

"That's all very well in practice, but will it work in theory?" - Anonymous

To Infinity!

And so it came to pass, that Epidemiology was over, and the weary, yet resilient DNP student, conquered the grueling and rigorous demands required to study the distribution and detriments of health related states in specific populations and to apply this knowledge to control health problems.

100.55% - how sweet it is!

And to give nod to my new appreciation for the usefulness of epidemiological research methods, I provide the following relevant stories:

Fat Duck Closes Over Food Poisoning

National Study Finds Strong Link Between Diabetes and Air Pollution

FDA Says it Will Review Pioglitazone Safety

Light Drinking Said Okay For Pregnant Women

And next up, Biostatistics!

Redemption!

I just finished my accursed Epidemiology midterm and, thanks to an extra credit option, was able to get 100%! This by no means brings my average up to where I want it, but good is done and perfect is late. By Halloween this class will be over and I am thinking of dressing up as an epidemiologist. I can have a lab coat full of vaccine needles and education pamphlets with a piece of a torn up and blood-stained "don't tread on me" flag hanging from the corner of my mouth!

First "Real" Quiz

Technically, this was the second quiz, but the first one was a "do you understand the syllabus" gimmie, so I do not count it. Thankfully the points counted since my performance on this exam leave much room for improvement.

I managed to over-read a few questions and under-read the directions. After discussing these exact traps with my BSN students yesterday, I feel served, schooled, and paid back!

I sent the professor an e-mail to get some clarification on a couple of questions so I do not fall behind the curve, and a few hours later there appeared an announcement on Blackboard saying emails would be answered publicly after everyone had completed the quiz. I hope this means I am not the only one/one of the few with questions or I am going to feel like a real dunce.

Now that I have a feel for the question style, I hope to ace the rest of these for the duration . . . or at least get the 10 points of extra credit at mid-term.

****Update****

After analysis of the questions, a boon was granted on a couple of questions that had double negatives and caused over half the class to pick the correct-wrong answer. I was one of those and I got back a point - happy day!

Discussion Board Mishap

As a hippy roasted-nut vendor at an art show told me once, "the problem with people today is they rely on 2-D communication." She then want on to talk about extra-terrestrials, but that is besides the point. We may have come a long way in the speed of communication both through technology and decreasing formality, but we are a long way from the eloquent and specific speech used in great letter writers like John and Abigail Adams or Henry James or Horace Walpole.

This is my pedantic way of saying my humor does not translate well in print! I put up several thoughts about mortality including, as a punch-line, "what SHOULD we die from?"and was essentially cautioned about the dangers of ignorance and dropping the ball on health promoting and disease prevention practices. I suppose my delivery made me sound flippant about death and disease.

Ooops.