Dominic Tanzillo

Two areas of interest for me AI in Medicine and Space Medicine, you wouldn’t know it but Interventional Radiology is basically the only field for me.

In my course on space medicine the last lecture is “Do you have what it takes to be an astronaut?” When we published it in 2021, the number one response for kids in China was astronaut. In America it was YouTuber. Let’s win it back!

Watched an undergrad at the coffee shop feed his entire problem set into ChatGPT. Have some dignity. Do it at home, behind a VPN, with the lights off, like the rest of us.

Italian (Americans) just get it

Italian American Halloween Costume: The Gaba-Ghoul

Now that the AI-in-math conversation has shifted from “should this be allowed” to “how do we adapt,” I’m curious whether the field gets more or less open to outsiders. Does a Lean proof from someone outside math academia now invite more scrutiny, or less? If you want it to double as a collaboration ask: Math has long been unusually open to outsiders with good proofs. I wonder if AI changes that. Selfishly asking: I have ideas about the math behind test ordering and diagnosis in medicine but not the training to formalize them. Is the door still open for collaborations like that?

I just got paid by @XMoney. This has me interested in post more science and education content here. Feels like early days of YouTube again.

This image is getting a lot of traction, so I want to add the male medical student's perspective on the OB/GYN rotation. I had a great rotation, and I also had plenty of patients decline to have a student in the room. It usually went like this: the attending or resident asked if a student could join, the patient asked whether the student was a man or a woman, and when they heard “man,” roughly 30-70% (depending on the day) declined. Some were fine with me taking the history but not with me being there for the exam. One patient told me she actually preferred male clinicians because she found them more careful. It varies, and it depends on the patient in front of you. Rather than sulk, I would always offer to start the note while the resident did the exam, or to take on chart review and med rec. For many women, the OB/GYN office is where they get their primary care. That's one reason the replies saying the rotation should be optional miss the mark. OB/GYN is 10 to 20% of Step 2 CK, and it's one of the best places to practice primary care. A few tips, especially for male students: Early in the rotation, a male resident sat me down and walked me through how he performs every pelvic exam. He was candid that it's harder for him than for his female colleagues because the exam is so sensitive. His advice was to narrate everything, tell the patient what's coming before each step, and say some version of, “If at any point you want me to pause or stop, just tell me. You're in control.” A week later, after a colposcopy and pelvic exam, the supervising NP told me it was one of the best exams she'd seen from a student, and she put that in my evaluation. I mention it only because the advice works. On L&D and urogynecology, I introduced myself to every patient and their family before surgery as part of the team. The attendings then asked whether it was OK for me to take part in the exam and the procedure. Only one patient declined, which freed me up to chart, review other cases, and study for my shelf. Even though I came in having delivered babies as an EMT in rural, out-of-hospital settings, many families were fine with me watching but not with me taking part in the delivery. That's fine too. Often my job was to explain to the family what was happening in the room while the residents and attendings were busy. Once, that meant catching a first-time dad as he fainted. The broader point for anyone starting rotations: treat everyone as part of the care team, including the patient. That turns the rotation into working together for the patient's health rather than something a student is owed. When a patient says no, that's informed consent working as it should, not something to lament.