Health Economics.
As I sat in Pendleton Atrium reading about the difference in death rates for white males vs. black males for heart disease, lung cancer and DIABETES, I finished an entire box of Girl Scout Caramel Delight Cookies. Fail.
[reading: "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status" by James P. Smith.]
Anyway, before I came to college, I remember feeling sorry for my dad whenever his beeper would go off in the middle of the night. (He’s an anesthesiologist) I haven’t had that feeling in a while b/c I’ve been away from home, but immediately after his b’day dinner two weeks ago, his beeper made that stupid broken up G flat chord noise and I felt so bad for him. I had always thought my dad’s life sucked, so when he was diagnosed with cancer 6 years ago, I wasn’t all that surprised when he said he just wanted to die. However, he seems to have beaten some very impressive statistics.
For example, the probability of an individual staying at work after being affected by a major disease is -0.06 during the first two years of the disease’s onset, and has a t-stat of 2.24. The probability of that individual staying at work the following two years is -0.16 with a t-stat of 7.67! Not gonna lie. I’m pretty impressed by my dad.
Thus, as I look for jobs, I am resigned to thinking that maybe I will have to get someone coffee everyday. Maybe I won’t get paid as much as I feel I deserve. But if my dad could do med school twice (once in S.Korea and once in the States) and has continued to stick to this job that he hates, then I can suck it up and deal with picking up phones for a year or two. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers. Unemployment hit 7.6% (its highest in 16 years).
