a. ian wong

adventures of a conventionally unconventional character email me [at] aiwong [dot] com fax [phone]

[aiwong]

Required Reading: The Economist’s Special Report On Tech Startups | TechCrunch

It's not every day we here at TechCrunch just point to someone else's work and say, "Here, you should go read this." But today's an exception, because The..

For you entrepreneurs - what do you think about this? 

[aiwong]

Soylent - the easy, healthy future of nutrition

What if you never had to worry about food again? Free yourself from the time and money you spend on food today, get healthy, and reduce your environmental impact!

More efficient eating? What if you saw 'staple' meals as just that - meals which satisfy your basic nutrient requirements - meals like breakfast and often lunch, but then leaving more efficiency for the 'fun' meals - social meals or business meals?

There's a DIY variant for those curious about the idea. 

It isn't for everyone - but is it for you? Assuming that it meets the basic nutritional requirements (for all macro and micronutrients) - what reservations do you have?

[aiwong]

As Hospital Prices Soar, a Stitch Tops $500

Hospital pricing is often convoluted, and hospital charges represent about a third of the total United States health care bill.

Isn't it scary? Something so basic that we learn in our M3 clerkship years could break someone's bank account...

On the billing side - we know that health insurance never pays us the amount we request, so we inflate our prices so the percentage that we do get is reasonable and fiscally responsible.

Maybe Obamacare might curb this, but is there another way?

[aiwong]

Seven Lies About Christianity -- Which Christians Believe

Christianity is great, but not everything we say or believe about it is necessarily true

Now, this isn't saying all Christians, but a lot - especially me included, when I was even just a bit younger. Sometimes, a reality check is necessary. How many of these do - or did - you believe?

[aiwong]

A doctor's handwriting is poor. A Russian's handwriting is also poor. 

What about a Russian doctor?

Aren't you glad that we have EMRs?

[aiwong]

Imagine giving up your six figure career as an executive chef to serve the poor. Crazy, right? 

Now think of also changing their bottom line while doing it: One serving of their food is as cheap as sixty cents. If you think about what's happening, this is unbelievable. 

To use this as a vehicle of sharing the good that's in your life? That's commendable, irrespective of whether you're religious or not!

[aiwong]

Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future

A few years ago, I started looking online to fill in chapters of my family history that no one had ever spoken of. I reg…

Over two generations have grown since we've had antibiotics in medicine. They're a mainstay in our care. But now...even as a third year, I've got a patient who has multi-drug resistant organisms. That's not even a shocker. What's worse is that we're specifically saving antibiotics so that he might have a chance if something breaks through. 

He's just one patient among sixteen. What happens when that's half of them? All of them?

[aiwong]

Things I never knew about the world of nursing and women

Nurse J: Being pregnant's made my boobs grow!

Nurse G: How big are they now?

Nurse J: I think they're 40DD now? I'm not sure, but they're a lot bigger!

Nurse G: Hey, if I had boobs like yours, I'd be outside mowing my lawn naked!

Me: Uhh...I came in at the wrong point of this conversation, didn't I?

(Nurse G slinks down into her seat, mortified)

[aiwong]

Do You Love Malcolm Gladwell? You're Reading Fairy Tales

What do you get when you read a book that reinforces your beliefs while making you feel nonconformist? 

I'm always interested in looking for perspectives, and rarely take things as the whole truth. Do we read things that make us more set in our ways, or do we widen the breadth of our thoughts?

[aiwong]

Click here to support Poverty Thoughts - In Book Form by Linda Walther Tirado

Hi. I'm KillerMartinis. If you are here on this page, it's because of this. That's the essay that started people talking about poverty in a way that we don't often see. People have t...

In response to my previous post on this girl, she put up a donation site for those who wanted to contribute and help her out. And it seems like she got all that she asked for - and, even though she could have had more - she stopped it. I'm impressed.

It's hard to turn down help. It's even harder to resist greed. How easy would it have been to keep on taking money?

If you were in the same situation, would you have done the same?

[aiwong]

Here's Why Poor People's Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense

We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves.

You know, we always talk about how women and men think differently, or how poor people and rich people think differently. 

Perhaps it's not people who think differently, but people who have different kinds of approaches given their experiences and positions?

[aiwong]

Practice makes permanent. But is permanent a good thing? How do we grow?

Practice does not make perfect

We immerse ourselves to get familiar. We imitate to understand concepts. And then we extend them.

In medicine, there's a phrase: see one, do one, teach one. Immerse yourself. Imitate. Then extend. 

Do you need to rethink how you approach learning?

[aiwong]

A Business Model That Brings Jobs, Health, Services -- and Joy -- to the Hardest Hit Communities

Want proof that the goals of business and the needs of the most vulnerable can align? Meet Jeff Brown, fourth-generation grocer and owner of the 10-store ShopRite regional chain based in Philadelphia.

In each of our lives, we are given opportunities. How do you turn those opportunities into ways to help both the world around you and yourself?

[aiwong]

You, with thousands of friends online, may not realize how lonely you are. But with thousands of friends...shouldn't that be an impossibility?

[aiwong]

Flashmobs with a purpose are amazing. 

Would you rethink about giving a donation the next time you see a street musician?

[aiwong]

What are you willing to suffer through?

The concept of delayed gratification is so rampant in those who pursue higher education. And yet, some of us don't 'succeed' - at least in the common sense of the world. We all want what is 'good' and what we 'deserve' - but what does that mean? 

The most important question to ask yourself

Simply, what are you willing to suffer? What will you sacrifice? 

An attending once joked to me, "Career. Money. Family. You can only pick two of the three." 

What are your priorities? What doesn't stand so high? 

I feel like the hardest thing to do in life isn't to say 'yes' to something - it's to say 'no' and to close doors. We're - or at least, I am - naturally driven by opportunities, and I like keeping the most doors open - to an engineer, also known as maximizing expected utility. 

What will you say no to? What will that let you do?

[aiwong]

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?

A robot!