Robert Trent is a graduate student.

Why standardized medical exams filter for compliant workers

Education
April 1, 2026

The American education system was not designed to produce scientists; it was designed to produce “interchangeable parts.” Frederick Gates, the architect of the Rockefeller-funded General Education Board, famously stated: “I do not want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.” While we like to imagine medical education has evolved, the reality is that our high-stakes testing, from the GRE to the USMLE, serves as a high-fidelity filter …

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Why standardized medical exams filter for compliant workers

Biologics are not small molecules: the case for pre-allergy testing in an era of immune-based therapies

Meds
May 1, 2025

“Once it’s in your body, there’s no taking it back.”

That’s what the infusion nurse told a friend of mine after administering the injection.

She had just started a biologic medication for an autoimmune condition. Immediately, her body reacted: nausea, then hives, then a terrifying tightening of her throat. She rushed back to the clinic. The IV steroids and Benadryl may have stopped the immediate effects, …

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Biologics are not small molecules: the case for pre-allergy testing in an era of immune-based therapies

Does the FDA approval of aducanumab mark the return of science-based medicine?

Meds
July 4, 2021

The 20th century was an explosion of scientific innovation and discovery. The success of chemistry, physics and biology to produce things such as antibiotics, radiography and genetic analysis could not be ignored.

Medicine is not now, nor has it ever been, a “science.” But over the past century, medicine became science-based. This means that while medicine was not in adherence with the scientific method, it did rely on …

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Does the FDA approval of aducanumab mark the return of science-based medicine?

Are we underestimating the danger of prions and prion based diseases?

Conditions
January 27, 2021

Assessment without definition: a flat tire on the road of progress

Even though we have known about prions for decades, very little progress has been made in defining what a prion is vs. what a prion is not, how they get into the brain, and how prion diseases are different from other neurodegenerative diseases. Phenomenologically these definitions can vary widely. To some, a prion causes a deadly, …

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Are we underestimating the danger of prions and prion based diseases?

Getting a second opinion can save lives. It is time we make Miranda rights for patients.

Physician
December 27, 2020

The Lebanese-born former American oncologist Farid Fata committed one of the most malicious acts of greed by a medical professional in recorded history.

Fata spent six years telling otherwise healthy people that they had cancer and needed immediate chemotherapy. He then fraudulently billed over $34 million in charges to Medicare and private insurance companies. Fata will arguably spend the rest of his life in prison, but the …

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Getting a second opinion can save lives. It is time we make Miranda rights for patients.

What role does the science of complexity play in medicine?

Conditions
August 27, 2019

The science of complexity lays a conceptual foundation for understanding “complex adaptive systems.” What all complex adaptive systems have in common is that they are all bound by the same set of physical laws. Their “behavior,” i.e., growth, maintenance, and death, can all be described using the same set of mathematical relationships. These systems (animals, plants, ecosystems, etc.) are the most productive and functionally effective systems known to man.

Unfortunately, our …

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What role does the science of complexity play in medicine?