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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2931 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 9, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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After two months from my original application, and two weeks since they asked me for some rather absurd documents that I had to scramble to provide, including one I was supposed to have legally turned in to my government but still had a random scan lying around, the utter radio silence from the GMC had me mildly concerned.

I kept checking my inbox and their website for weeks hoping they'd at least inform me of my progress.

Imagine my surprise when I randomly checked today and it said I'm a fully licensed doctor with a license to practise. I feel both happy and underwhelmed, you'd think that was at least worth a congratulatory email!

But there it stands, proof that despite fucking up big time in my choice of med school, being incorrigibly lazy and depressed and then having to teach myself all the medicine I snoozed through, 6 months of working my ass off has provided proof that I meet the standards needed to be a respectable First World doctor. It's been a long time coming, and thank you to everyone who overwhelmed me with support along the way, even during the dark days when this all seemed a distant dream, a hallucination of a overworked and overwhelmed intern who felt that his white coat hung heavy as a shroud on an impostor's frame.

I did this. It was all me. Now onto greater things!

Congrats!

Now get some sleep, eat some healthy food, and go easy on the stimulants for a bit. You have the time.

I wish I had the luxury of taking my time, I really do, but I do honestly think that the next 5 years are going to make or break me (and you).

I'll be honest, GPT-4 is a better doctor than me. All it lacks are appendages and the right to prescribe. The former can be mitigated through ongoing advanced in robotics, or trained monkeys midlevels like NPs or PAs, who already make more money than a junior doctor for less work and no right to prescribe (and thus no responsibility to).

So the way I see it, I either I make bank, or I manage to wrangle citizenship in a First World Country that can take care of its own, even when they're economically unproductive. While the UK is First World, it's not rich enough to make this something I can count on. Still better than India of course, but at this point I hardly feel the need to state that.

And even their rather straight forward immigration pathway takes 5+1 years, and that is uncomfortably close. I'd rather take my odds with an investor visa if I can make the money. No harm in trying! I've at least got a fallback that doesn't involve living in a country I detest, merely one I'm ambivalent on.

As for the use of stimulants, don't worry, I've pulled more grueling hours, and I do need them to be productive. It's not fun, but since I'm not holding out for a cure for ADHD in the near term, it's something I've made my peace with. The drugs are already so unpleasant that I don't feel any urge to up the dose, I have to fight myself to take them at all. Still beats not being able to do anything useful.

Thank you for the kind words, and I will take a day or two off to recollect myself and then start job hunting.

I'll be honest, GPT-4 is a better doctor than me.

Can you provide a good prompt template and the set of hyperparameters (temperature, top p, etc) to make gpt-4 play doctor?

If you're using ChatGPT 4, I heard it's being rather reticent on giving medical advice.

The only relevant parameter I personally changed was temperature, and even then it was at the standard 0.5 as far as I can recall. I didn't see top-P being exposed, though I know what it is from fucking around in the OAI Playground.

The system prompt was usually bog standard, checking the version I use right now, it just says "You are a helpful assistant".

Keep in mind that most of my exposure to it was through rather bootleg techniques and fly-by-night discord bots. God knows what they're being prompted with, but the best and most consistent one seems to use absolutely standard settings as far as I can tell.

I didn't need any prompt engineering techniques at all, but if you want a rough idea of my usual prompting:

I am junior doctor-

trying to understand concept X, please explain it to me.

Seeking to improve my clinical skills, please generate clinical vignettes on topic X, and then grade my response.

Explain guidelines X to me.

Or:

"Discuss and contrast endopthalmitis and TASS"

"I'm a junior doctor wanting to brush up on my clinical skills. Generate a clinical vignette, and I'll attempt to make a diagnosis and tt plan. Grade me on my response and correct any error."

The last two are copied verbatim. They work absolutely fine.

I suspect that telling it I'm a doctor is sufficient for it to avoid dumbing things down, not that it does so from my personal experience.

Thought about moving to Canada, specifically Alberta? We seem to need doctors and we have lots of small cities with lower costs of living (and no Provincial Sales Tax), and big rural doctor bumps. No idea how much of a thing that immigration procedure is though!

I'm not opposed to it, just a little concerned about the fact it gets cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. I'm a tropical creature, and the UK gets chilly enough in the winter for me!

I have ongoing issues that don't make eligible for that yet, but assuming I solve it, I'm willing to try my luck!

Ah yeah...It does get down to -30/-40C in the winter. I always forget that regular people live in normal places where you don't have to think "Wow it's so cold today that it hurts to go outside" multiple times a year.

This comment makes me half-believe your initial endorsement of the Canadian interior was a vaguely concealed assassination attempt ;)

BRB, I'm doing to go camp in an industrial freezer at my local hospital for a few days and see how it holds up haha.

I don't really understand why people care so much about this, you're mostly inside anyway so why does it matter if it's -5, -20 or -30? Id say that negative degrees are preferable to low positive because at least it's dry.

The major concern here shouldn't be the temperature but the lack of light.

I mean, I wouldn't want to be cooped up inside a house for months on end, or go from building to building and not outside. It's not an insurmountable issue, but it's still annoying.

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