#AtMeridiem

[atmiger224]

[atmedicine]

The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and the manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death.

-When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut

[dxmedstudent]

In your opinion, how would you rank med specialties in terms of surviving an apocalypse? (vector/spread/apocalyptic scenario of your choice)

That’s a funny question. I haven’t thought about it too much, but a quick attempt at such a list might look like: Cope well:

Ortopaedics: good with blunt objects and smashing things. You don’t need to knwo any medicine to fight a zombie apocalypse. They wouldn’t do so well in an infectious outbreak situation, though.

ID: hey, they rule infections with an iron well-gloved fist. Avoiding contamination is second nature to them; what they lack in real world experience they make up for in knowing germs.

Obs and Gynae: you’re gonna need someone who can deliver a baby without breaking a sweat. They have seen things... bloody things and they have no fear.

Radiogists will be locked away in their dark rooms. They won’t even know there’s an apocalyptic scenario happening. Not sure they’d care.

Paediatrics; used to avoiding getting bitten/fending off thrashing toddlers, and fighting off lots of germs brought in by kiddies.

Veterinary medicine. For similar reasons.

Sexual health/HIV: nothing is too gruesome. They understand infection and human behaviour like almost nobody else.

Cope OK

Pathologists: Locked away from clinical areas gives them a certain amount of safety.  Very likely to crack some important information that might help get a cure. They won’t even know there’s an apocalyptic scenario happening. But if they do autopsies, high risk of getting infected before they realise what’s happening.

ITU. Super good in the controlled environment of their ITU, and have lots of useful skills.  But psychologically would cope very badly with a zombie apocalypse. They might hold their nerve against a more ordinary pathogen, though.

Respiratory. They know germs, they could set you up with some NIV or some fancy masks if you need respiratory treatment or precautions.

Gastroenterology; they are used to body fluids, so not easily fazed.

Palliative care; beware those who deal with death every day.

Oncology; they deal in toxins, and treading the fine line between poisoning and keeping people alive. I am not sure if they’d be as useful with infections as with zombies, but they have no fear of death.

Rheumatology. They might diagnose a zombie with lupus, but they’d probably figure out how to handle it in the end.

Nephrologists; they are used to keeping people alive via machines and dealing with the consequences.

Cope badly:

Surgeons. Yes, they are good with sharp objects, but on a tiny, tiny scale. They like a controlled environment. Likely to confuse a zombie for an anaesthetist and start barking orders.

ENT: great skills on a tiny, tiny scale, but can you imagine placing an otoscope in a zombie? I think not. Might be handy if they can use it as a boomerang. 

Opthalmologists ditto.

Anaesthetics. Cool skills, and very useful in a pinch. But can they emotionally deal with the pressure of giving up sudoku and having to, you know, actually run around frantically doing things.

GPs: it’s not that they will cope badly. It’s that their patients bring in ALL the germs, even when they should probably be in hospital. So they’ll no doubt be the first to be infected when someone thinks that their GP can treat ebola with some lempsip and a sick note.

Cardiology. Is anyone having an MI or arrythmia? No. Oh well, too bad, because that’s about all they want to be dealing with. They might be much more useful in any scenario where delivering electric shocks to patients (or zombies) is useful.

Geriatricians: lovely people, but how will they cope with an outbreak killing like 90% of their patients?

Endocrinologists. I don’t know, I can’t see them having any special edge.

Feel free to add to the list :)

[cherikfics]

Thank you for still maintaining this blog. I was hoping someone can help me find this fic: older charles, younger erik. I think it was a soulmates au? I remember a dinner scene where charles’ friends make fun of erik for being in high school.

Unfortunately not one I recognize and not tagged with the obvious things if it’s in Ao3. But here’s hoping one of my followers recognizes it!

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"alea iacta est" by Anonymous  - Prompt: Underage!alpha!Erik and older omega Charles. Erik is straddling the age of majority or a little under, responsible for his age, confident, probably not a virgin. Charles is a professor who thinks of sex as an inconvenient biology thing he really doesn't want to bother with, until Erik imprints on him in an ice cream shop or something when he's on an outing with his friends.There is awkwardness and Charles trying to treat Erik as a responsible adult should a child, but there's just this overwhelming need to kneel or spread his legs and beg, and Erik is secretly intimidated by his older, hyperintelligent omega who is also so damn sweet.There is no legal trouble because alphas can just take their omegas regardless of age- it's biased- and Charles is also terrified that his alpha will turn out to be someone who'll just refuse him any of his legal rights that he had as an unbonded omega, and these fears intensify when he finds out how young Erik is. But Erik turns out to be sweet and willing to negotiate and protective and respectful of his rights- and neither of them can just believe how damn lucky he is.

Warnings for: Underage, A/B/O dynamics

[swingsetindecember]

atmeridiem-miger224 replied to your post: ok, so americans, i have to network with...

Holidays, vacations, describing canada, the weather. Lol, we have wanderlust because we hardly get days off.

IDK THEY WERENT INTERESTED IN CANADA

[liliaeth]

Your posts about Grimm and Juliette give me so much hope. There was so much hate for her character on fb so i came to tumblr in search of more open-minded people. Little did i realize how much hate there was for her. The double standards are unreal. Thank you for being reasonable.

The problem is that tumblr has a lot of hatred towards female characters. (unless it’s in a femslash fandom, then they hate on the men instead)

Honestly, with a rare exception, fandom tends to quickly hate on any female character, unless they fit very narrow stereotypes.

[stele3]

atmeridiem-miger224 replied to your post: acupoftea-great-enough: zachofalltrade: ...

stele, I love your fact checking ways

*tips hat* I do my best.

[adenil-umano]

Ive been diving deep into all of your spones content, it's wonderful! Do you have an AO3 account?

How kind! Yes, I do. I am here. 

[relenafanel]

atmeridiem replied to your post “Ok, so I’m about to post the prologue of Civilians GDI because I would...”

omfg relena, of course you do this during my first quizzes in med school. I love you XD

I ALMOST RECOMMEND YOU DON’T EVEN FUCKING READ IT UNTIL I POST THE REST

[atmedicine]

“As my friend Maud once said, 'There are times when you must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don't speak, they have changed you.'"

—Melissa McEwan

[yetanotheremptypage]

It's been months and I'm still having emotions about your Charlie Gardner gmw defense/analysis. I just love the glimpses we had of that boy so much! I think what the show does well is give us these teasers of depth in the side characters, so it literally hurts when we dont see them again. Thank you for writing on this.

No problem! Thank you so much for your kind words!

[swingsetindecember]

You need to get into A Discovery of Witches dude. Its just so damn pretty.

is that streaming somewhere that won’t give my computer a virus?

[thebookmarkedone]

I have a Gansey problem and you're enabling me. Thank you so much for everything you do in fandom.

I don't have a gansey problem (I'm in denial send help) I'm vvvvvvvvv sure he's going to DIE and me too but yeah he willAnd thank you???!!! .....idontdomuchimakestupideditsbcimlikethatbutthankyou

[stele3]

atmeridiem replied to your post: Trump Is Literally Not My President: CIA States...

I cant believe this. We’re nearing the date of the historical dissolution of the USSR and you have people in Russia literally longing for days of the Czar and you have people in the US saying that questioning the election is unpatriotic and “do you really want to risk a war with Russia over something like an election” (See the Brian Lehrer show 12/12/2016) …I dont even understand what is happening with the world anymore.

Meanwhile Trump is threatening not to respect China’s “One China” policy and hinting at the completely-unproven idea that maybe China was responsible for all the hacking, which might actually lead to war. Jesus Christ save us all.

[atmiger224]

The Warp Effect (2022)