Written by Pooja Suganthan Edited by Elizabeth Badalov “Shark Tank” billionaire Mark Cuban has started a low-cost online pharmacy. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) seeks to sell common prescription medications at a discounted price. On the Cost Plus website, Cuban advertises that "Everyone should have safe, affordable medicines with transparent prices.” The home page displays generic drugs at significantly discounted rates. For example, Imatinib, the generic ver

Written by Nishanth Araveti Edited by Pooja Suganthan “A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death” Writing in the 18th century, it was Baron De Montesquieu who argued that the tally sheet of existence boils down to a negative number– life it seemed was better left unlived than forced to endure the slog of being. By and large though, we agree that existence is a positive experience worth living despite the many hurdles of everyday life. How then, do we begin to jud

Written by Laila Gad Edited by Sanjana Ahmed “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” a phrase well ingrained in our minds after watching hundreds of Snickers commercials. But, it is true. After sitting in a three-hour lecture, the term “hangry,” referring to being “bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger,” becomes all too familiar. Essentially, you lose all sense of control: you forget how to think before you speak, you’re highly irritable, and you make rash decisions, a

Written by Aisha Abid Edited by Faith Singh Do physicians have any ethical responsibility to inform patients regarding medical errors? Medical errors can occur inadvertently and may or may not affect the patient depending on a variety of conditions. A mistake might cause a misdiagnosis or a negative adverse effect in the patient's condition. These mistakes can occur for various reasons such as, the pressure to check a large number of patients in a short amount of time, a lac

Written by Jonathan Gao Edited by Elizabeth Badalov Picture this: you lie in a small examination room as the physician performs the same old physical examination. The thin hospital gown, which never fits well anyways, is draped clumsily over you. A loosely-fit cannula hangs around your nose to help supplement oxygen; your breathing is steady, but it is heavy and shaky. All the while, you can only think about how there’s nothing more that you want to do than spend more time wi

Written by Nishanth Araveti Edited by Jacquelyn Tang First proposed by philosopher Derek Parfit, the Teletransporter Thought Experiment supposes the existence of a machine that, upon entering, would clone you perfectly; all memories, neurons, every atom of you perfectly replicated and subsequently replicated on Mars before incinerating the body that stepped in on Earth. Are you on Mars? Or is it a different you that stepped out on Mars? At the root of this problem is the conc

Written by Elizabeth Katanov Edited by Aisha Abid Imagine being induced in a coma for 23 days, electroshocked three times a day, and then brainwashed for 15 hours every subsequent day for months. This was the case with Project MK-ULTRA, a secret CIA endeavor executed in Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The fierce rivalry between the Soviet Union and America during the Cold War Era had both sides racing to devise the most efficient weapons. A

Written by Pooja Suganthan Edited by Kelvin Wu Two weeks ago, I was chased around the Jamaica 179 Street subway station by a man with a giant bucket filled with grain. Saying it out loud sounds comical now, but at that moment, I was fearing for my life. Days after my train chase, I started to hear more and more stories about violence and harassment on the subways. Pushing riders in front of trains, rape, assault, robbery, stabbing, and murder. My heart ached for all the victi

Written by Marium Ghobriel Edited by Ishraq Nihal Euthanasia, also known as assisted suicide, is the act of ending the life of someone who suffers from an incurable and painful condition. According to Britannica, the definition of euthanasia is the “act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measur

Written by Sanjana Ahmed Edited by Lok-Yee Lam As a pre-medical student, I know that most people can recognize that becoming a doctor is no easy feat. Not only do we have to maintain stellar grades and foster group relationships with mentors and professors for the sake of recommendation letters, but we also fill up the rest of our time by pursuing intense extracurriculars in hopes of fulfilling requirements and standing out amongst our peers. It is no wonder that many of us e

Written by Christine Kuang Edited by Jacquelyn Tang It's known that parenting is a form of manipulation (Johari Talib & Marmat, 2011). However, have your elders concocted an abstractive term during your developmental period to have you behave in a certain way? Most Chinese children grew up hearing the words yeet hay. I hear left and right: yeet hay this, yeet hay that. Basically, they say everything is yeet hay. If you did not grow up hearing the term, yeet hay roughly transl

Written by Pooja Suganthan Edited by Kelvin Wu At-home DNA test kits, like 23andMe and AncestryDNA, have become household names over the past 20 years. As of October 2020, approximately 1 in 5 Americans have taken a direct-to-consumer genetic test. Ranging from $79 to $199, genetic testing kits are advertised as ways to learn more about your family tree and ethnicity. These kits are usually popular gifts for the holidays because they’re user-friendly: users collect DNA by spi

Written by Marium Ghobriel Edited by Elizabeth Katanov If science was capable of making everyone a morally sound person, what would come of it? Would crime rates decline? Would recidivism be less common? Would different communities be more likely to get along? Moral bioenhancement (MBE) utilizes biomedical tools in order to improve one’s sense of morality. At first glance, this may seem like a great novel use of medical technology to improve society for the greater good. Hate

Writer by Jonathan Gao Editor by Kelvin Wu When looking at applications for institutional programs that are designed to bolster interest in attractive medical specialties, such as surgery or pediatrics, I often find myself in an awkward position when it comes to wanting to apply. Often catered to underrepresented minorities in the U.S, these programs are a tremendous asset for students that identify as Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander, and mainland Pu

Written by: Lok-Yee Lam Edited by: Laila Gad In recognition of National Men’s Health Awareness Month, it is important that we draw attention to men’s mental health which is too often overlooked in our modern-day society. As the mental health community continues to raise awareness and prioritize the issue, people are learning to speak up against stigmas and acknowledge that it is okay to not be okay. Despite the ongoing efforts to normalize mental health, the conversation arou

Written by Christine Kuang Edited by Jacquelyn Tang Human organs are scarce. Why not order organs from animals? According to the American Transplantation Foundation, there are currently 107,000 patients on the waiting list. Clinical transplantation functions as an end-stage organ failure solution. This astronomical number does not include patients whose surgeries have not met the criteria of "lifesaving." Due to the shortage of human organs supply, the waiting list for organ

Written by: Ishraq Nihal Edited by Marium Ghobriel As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on in the wake of the highly contagious delta variant, a renewed sense of urgency has prompted schools and businesses all over the country to invoke a vaccine mandate. President Biden himself has recently required federal workers to be vaccinated, as well as companies with more than 100 employees, both decisions of which were met with both approval and open hostility. As vaccination rates are d

Written by Kelvin Wu Edited by Pooja Suganthan It seems like so long ago that the idiom “a chip on one’s shoulder” was just a saying for someone who harbors a grudge or grievance. The amount of people during this pandemic writing about the “microchip” that comes with the COVID-19 vaccine was alarming enough to track attention. What seemed to be the answer to this two year-long pandemic became nothing but a clear distinction of people’s ideals. Although there is not a specific

Written by Jonathan Gao Edited by Elizabeth Badalov It feels just like yesterday when the sharp scent of Five Thieves essential oil and the pungent smell of garlic boiling in a mysterious broth hung in the air of my home. The garlic broth, whose fumes were supposedly used to ‘disinfect’ the air of homes in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic, made a popular resurgence during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. As for essential oils, despite the debate on the merits of

Written by Faith SIngh Edited by Anling Chen In the age of technology, where we can get countless information at the tip of our fingers, the hard part comes from distinguishing truth from error. We are often cautioned to avoid using google for medical advice to avoid unwarranted panic. However, throughout the coronavirus pandemic many people have suffered an information overload, between major news outlets, press conferences from government officials, medical journals, Facebo