Editor’s Corner
A New Year, A New Set of Resolutions
I
T’S THE DAWN OF A NEW YEAR, and I’m sure this is one of many columns in many
different publications you will read in which the author details his or her goals for the
coming year. Personally, I always try to come up with a list of resolutions, with the hope
that completing them will make my life happier, more productive, and maybe even more
rewarding. Sitting down to make the list is such a calming ritual that I sometimes wonder if making the list is just as satisfying as actually keeping any of the resolutions. And,
of course, resolving to do better in the new year also serves to soothe my overdeveloped
Asian, Catholic sense of guilt.
So, here are my five resolutions for 2015:
1. I will clean off my desk – really. This is the year that this is finally, actually going to happen. I will unearth the actual physical surface of the desk and keep it
free from debris for an entire month. I fully accept that this may involve losing
forms I was supposed to fill out six months ago. However, having a clean desk
will be worth it – if only for the jaw-dropping stares of visitors who formerly
had to stand on their tiptoes to see me over the stacks of chaotically organized
towers of paper.
Alice Ma, MD, is an
associate professor in the
Department of Medicine,
Division of Hematology
and Oncology, at the
University of North
Carolina School of
Medicine in Chapel Hill.
2. I will learn the complement cascade and remember it – for at least 10 minutes.
I always figured that, since I knew the coagulation cascade, I could be excused
from knowing the complement cascade. No one should be expected to know
both, right? Since it turns out that the complement system has been shown to
play a bigger and bigger role in diseases that I study, though, I guess I’m going to
have to bite the bullet and commit complement cascades to memory. Yes, even
both the classical and the alternative ones. Geez, it’s going to be a tough yea ȸ(̸$