WILTIMS #180: Can I have that back, please?

Today was one of only a handful of days that I have left lecture over the past year due to the poor quality of the presentation. My high attendance rate is no small feat given that only around a third of our class attends pathology lectures and maybe a fifth attends microbiology. But by no means does that mean most of my colleagues are slacking off.

Actually, the ones not attending lecture are probably being far more productive. With the ability to play the audio from lecture at 1.5 or double speed, you can get far more done just waiting a day for the recording. Also, half of our topics this year are self-study, meaning that there is no lecture - we are simply expected to teach ourselves the material. And the topics that are lectured on are generally not covered at the level we will be expected to know things for our Step 1 board exam at the end of the year. So, when after leaving class this morning I joined some friends for a study group, we covered more and in more detail than the people we left behind.

"Why does anyone go to lecture at all then?" you might justifiably ask. Some just learn well by listening and would rather listen live. Others like to be able to ask questions of the professors. But I think the bulk of us do it out of habit. After all, why are we paying $50k a year to go to a school where we teach ourselves everything?

TIL At some point in the past I learned but was reminded of today and wanted to share with you because it's a really cool anecdote that: During WWII, penicillin was collected from soldiers' pee so that it could be recycled. The antibiotic was still relatively new and manufacturing couldn't keep up with the demand brought about by all the ailing GIs, so the military took advantage of physiology and penicillin's clearance to save countless more lives.

When penicillin is injected into the blood, it only makes one pass before being almost entirely cleared into the urine by the kidneys. Some of the drug does it's job during that pass and is absorbed and used by the body to kill off bacteria, but the vast majority is just peed out. If you collect the treated soldiers' pee and precipitate out the unused drug, you can very efficiently and sterilely recycle this lifesaving compound to save dozens more lives with the same amount of drug.