u/LukeVenable

I decided to check out Project Hail Mary (the book) because I enjoyed The Martian (the film). Holy fuck is his prose annoying. It's like a front page redditor trying to write Marvel dialogue. Here's a random excerpt:

“What killed it?”
“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe.”
“You poked it with a stick?”
“No!” I said. “Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”

I've heard the movie is far superior to the book so I'm just going to bail out now and watch that instead.

Also I've had a sci-fi itch recently so please give me recommendations for something actually good!

I work in family med so we pretty regularly have patients pass away from various causes. We often get calls from police officers demanding to know immediately if we will agree to sign the death certificate. The first time I ever got one of these calls I asked the officer for more information about the patient's death, and he was like "I dunno, he was found dead in his home tonight and we don't suspect foul play". I asked my colleagues about this and they told me you pretty much just have to agree to sign off on it even when you know next to nothing about the actual cause of death so that the police, funeral home, insurers, etc can move the process along.

It just feels weird to be basically making up bullshit on an official government document with my name and license attached to it..

In the scene where Bear goes to work and Nikki stands motionless waiting for him, she urinates on herself as soon as Bear leaves the house. At first this struck me as odd, as it would have made more sense for her to need to pee later in the day, but then I had a realization. She must have had a full bladder the entire morning but because wish Nikki was in control she wouldn't have wanted to miss any time with Bear by going to the bathroom.

So on top of everything else, poor OG Nikki was forced to walk around with the feeling of a full bladder all the time 🙁

I've worked in family med for the past 7 years. I've never hated my job, but one thing that wore on me more than I realized was weight loss counseling. It's just so depressing telling patients the same advice they've already heard a million times about diet changes, exercise, seeing a dietician, blah blah blah knowing fully well ~95% of them aren't going to lose the weight.

But now we have something that actually works! And unlike most meds for chronic illnesses, patients are actually motivated to try them and often are already educated about them. It's so rewarding when you see a patient for a follow up visit and they've dropped 30 pounds, they're beaming with pride, telling you about how much more they're able to do and how much more confident they feel. Not to mention the improvements in their blood pressure, lipids, a1c.

Of course there's the usual bullshit of fighting insurance companies to get the meds, but at this point most of my patients are just paying cash anyway.