Dear Antibiotics, thank you!

So this is not the next post I intended to write, but I wanted to share this cool article from NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine, arguably the most prominent medical journal to have your article published in).

The article is part of 200th anniversary of the journal and discusses the leading causes of death in 1900 and in 2010 in the US.  You can see the dramatic reduction in disease burden from contagious and infectious diseases.  The three leading causes of death in 1900:  pneumonia/influenza, tuberculosis, and gastrointestinal infections.  In present day, it's heart disease, cancer, and "non-infectious airway diseases".

Click the graphic to enlarge it.

Article source:


Jones, David S., "The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine", N Engl J Med 2012; 366:2333-2338June 21, 2012

Link to article: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1113569

My Day Job

Today’s blog post is a description of my day job, based on a reader request.  My next post will elaborate on this topic.

What is a consultant?

I am a consultant.  Generally speaking, consultants work for clients who have questions about their business and the market for their products.  Consulting is a hierarchical field.  My firm has 7 levels from the fresh-out-of-college entry level Analyst role to the top-boss title of Partner.  Each level is defined by a set of expectations and skills and one is not promoted until they can demonstrate competency in a variety of areas such as (for the junior levels) -- interviewing physicians, analyzing data in Excel and SPSS, writing a survey, managing time and communicating with teams.  Consulting is like an apprenticeship – you are constantly seeing what those above you can do and learning from them.  Usually, once you’re good at your job, you get pushed into a new role with new challenges and opportunities.  Consulting is not the type of job when you stay at a level/role for a long time after you’ve mastered it.

Who becomes a consultant?

Consultants tend to be type A overachiever personalities.  As a group, we tend to be extroverted, but that’s not always the case.  It’s probably a similar personality to those who are successful in sales – interpersonal relationships become very important, along with communication and strategic thinking and planning.  To college students, consulting represents a field that “doesn’t close any doors” meaning if you become a consultant upon graduation – as I did – you are not narrowing your options for future jobs but you are gaining valuable skills and an understanding of the business world.  Consulting lets you avoid picking an industry or specific role, it preserves – or appears to college seniors to do so – the attributes of “the generalist” compared to many career or academic options.

Who do you work for?

Because my consulting firm is specialized, we focus only on the healthcare and life science markets.  Our clients are pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the makers of medical devices and technologies, and the manufacturers of diagnostic and life science research equipment.  We work for companies that make cutting-edge cancer treatment, catheter tubing and syringes, robots that perform surgery, machines that analyze DNA and many things in between. 

What is the office like?

My office is not the company headquarters –we have about 8 staff in the office.  On a day to day basis, everyone in my small office works on computers in cubicles.  The office – located in a high-rise office building – includes two private offices for senior staff, a few conference rooms and a kitchen stocked with shared snacks and treats.  I’m usually in the office 10-12 hours/day, Monday to Friday and usually have weekends free. 

Innovations

The NY Times published a pretty cool list of innovations here (hat-tip toVera's gchat status) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/03/magazine/innovations-issue.html

What's your favorite?

Permanent sunscreen might be my favorite.

A few that are particularly interesting from the health and wellness perspective:

• the anti-slouch screen (#13) for better posture at the desk
• the spandex exercise pants with sensors (#3) to monitor muscle use
• the tooth sensor that detects and reports plaque (#23)
• the blood test for depression (#25) is amazing, and would go so far toward de-stigmatizing and enhancing treatment

How Often Do You Call Family?

I find mundane habits very interesting, especially how they vary between people.  Let's take calling your parents as an example.  I cannot imagine going weeks at a time without chatting with my Mom and Dad, but my brother doesn't call home very often.  Even Travis and I have very different parent-calling habits.  I call often but for short times; Travis calls weekly but for longer conversations.

How do you talk to your parents?

When I call, I almost always talk to both parents, together, on speaker phone.  Some people call one parent and only one parent at a time, others call and talk to one, then talk to the other.  Do you have different kinds of conversations with one parents compared to the other?

How often do you call your parents?

I consider myself to be pretty close with my parents and I probably call them greater than 3x per week.  I typically call on my walk home from work, which is usually around 7:30pm my time, so it's about 10:30pm Eastern.  My phone calls typically last 10-20 minutes -- my parents can tell when I get to the lobby of my building because the sound quality improves (no more wind or traffic noise).  As a random aside, I have found my headphones with built-in microphone to be really useful in this regard.  If I work late and walk home after 8, I don't call.  As a result, my parents tend to know if I have a busy week -- they won't hear from me for several evenings in a row.  They also know if I call them before 9:30pm Eastern that I'm leaving work early.  Some weeks, I call every day in the work week; on some very hectic weeks I might not speak to them M-F at all. But, I'd say it is very, very rare for 8 or 10 days to elapse between calls.

How often to you call other relatives -- siblings, aunts/uncles, others?

I'm not very good about calling my brother, but we exchange either an email or call monthly and we're trying to do better.  I don't really talk by phone to any of my extended family.

Do you have any other communication habits with your parents?

I did not really fly much before college, so most of my early flights were between home and Boston.  As a result, I tended to call my parents to tell them I was on the plane or had landed -- this had a practical purpose when they were meeting me on one end of the flight.  Now, however, I've established  a pattern or habit of calling or emailing when I land, where ever I've traveled.  I always tell my parents about trips for work or fun and let them know when I arrive in a new city.  Well, except that last time I went to Boston and totally forgot to tell my dad, who got a little worried since I stick to this habit all the time... several missed calls later, I reassured him I was indeed fine!

In Complete Sentences

Starting today…

To me, blogging, or, more accurately -- being a blogger -- is an ongoing process.  Just because you've written a poem once does not make you a poet; taking a few pictures does not make you a photographer.  I don't want to belabor this sentiment, but writing is a process of reflection, of chronicling, and of creating.  It's a process I'd like to initiate and sustain, starting now.  Starting today.

Why now?

There are several reasons I am doing this now:

1. I started this blog this summer and was not able to sustain routine posting, which was my goal.  Now that a big life milestone is out of the way, I’m ‘rebooting’ my efforts at blogging.
2. I work in consulting, a field that emphasizes incomplete sentences over prose; monosyllabic words over colorful narration; and bullets over paragraphs.  I miss using complete sentences in my professional life.  
3. When I emailed a bunch of friends about "should I start a blog?" the reaction was "yes, do it!" so I'm carpe-diem-ing.

 Topics

I will share observations and ideas I have about personal and professional growth, including lessons learned at my job and in my relationships.  I am interested in personal betterment, changing habits, and pivoting perspectives.