Hey guys, over the summer, I took time to attend a week-long course learning about the medical school application process and doing many hands-on activities. I want to share my experience here through a short essay that I wrote.
Hi guys! Did you know that a poor mental heath is connected to physical and social abilities in teens/adolescents? I found an article talking about how about 44.2% of adolescents that have chronic pain are associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety. Researchers have also found that this can lead to a deficit in social functioning in families. With this information in mind, it's safe to assume that one way to take care of mental heath is to improve physical health!
Here's the article I found!
https://www.theeducatedpatient.com/view/the-social-toll-of-teen-pain-and-mental-health-struggles
With AI becoming increasingly more relevant in our lives, I wondered how it could benefit dentistry. I found in this article that AI already has a pretty significant role in modern dentistry, with some dentists using AI to detect diseases much earlier than before, improve treatment planning, better analyze dental images, and even strengthen patient care. Unlike other occupations, I don't think AI would pose much of a threat in regard to taking dental jobs, rather I believe that dentistry has the potential to significantly benefit from AI, enhancing education, speeding up research, and overall improving patient well-being. I think that it would be amazing if AI were able to help scientists discover better alternatives to our current dental treatments. Maybe AI can reduce treatment costs for patients, or like I mentioned in previous articles, help patients regenerate their teeth. Very interesting and exciting to think about! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S3117487625000059
Yeah this is super exciting! It's nice to see ai being used in helpful & productive ways like this. However, a big critique people have of medical ai is its preexisting bias (given that datasets tend to be predominantly high income white people) and its tendency to propagate that bias in treatment. Given that, how much do you think ai should play a role in things like dental education? Personally, i don't know if there's even a right answer to this question with how different models can be from each other?
Cte (chronic traumatic encephalopathy; a progressive dementia caused by harmful protein buildup in the brain after repeated head trauma) has been pretty relevant lately. I keep seeing news stories about it. Which is a good thing - awareness leads to precaution leads to prevention.
I watched some snippets of the world cup final today. Tbh i love watching people do headers because it's just such an insane skill in my opinion. I can't even imagine doing that without getting scared.
But it also made me think about cte in soccer. Typically, cte is associated with american football & boxing bc people get concussed so often in those sports, but it also has high prevalence in soccer. Interestingly, most cases of soccer players developing cte are due to repeated sub-concussive trauma; so things like headers.
I wonder if head protection for soccer players is feasible. I don’t play, so I've no…
I like how you pointed out the tradeoff between preserving the sport and protecting athletes. Headers are such an iconic part of soccer, but if repeated impacts increase the risk of neurodegenerative disease, it’s worth exploring practical solutions. Whether that’s improved headgear, technique training, or rule modifications at younger ages, I think there’s a lot of room for innovation without taking away what makes soccer unique.
Wow! It’s interesting to see how chronic pain can affect someone beyond physically. I think that broadening the range of possible causes for mental health issues would undoubtedly help researchers better understand and address those who are struggling so it’s good to see that stuff like this is getting attention.