In college, I used to have this one thought every finals week after weekends of pushing back studying while going to bars and binging on TV shows, only to finally cram in the library and study like a life depended on it. I always thought the combined effort of all that brainpower squeezed out of every foramen of every cranium from every student making their last ditch effort to save their grades on finals could cumulate into breakthroughs that would save this planet.
So how is it that such a highly concentrated school equipped with the best tools to provide the most powerful inter-professional mixing of health fields only has the Annual Formal to boast as its greatest meeting between the world’s best graduate programs?
UCSF students need more opportunities, spaces and events to connect the brainiacs from all disciplines that inhabit their campuses.
It is ridiculous that there are no such opportunities.
It’s like grabbing Triple A quality Wagyu Steak and slapping that onto an unoiled pan when you have a whole array of Himalayan Pink Salt, fresh crushed peppers, garlic herb butter and a nicely aged skillet right next to you.
Some of the greatest foundations of our school come from the amazing work that has crossed through the programs. Like when former Associate Dean for Global Oral Health of the Dental School, John Greenspan, discovered traces of AIDS in the oral cavity, which led to the formation of the largest NIH funded AIDS clinic with School of Medicine and Pathology programs.
What if — and this is a big what if — they took it a step further forward and mixed in included the best pharmacists and toxicologists of our school of the at that time? On top of the detection methods, symptoms and factors that indicate AIDS patients, could we not have had the contributing treatments to AIDS much more quickly? Couldn’t we have aided the world even more in the battle against one of the most well-known medical problems of its time?
On the bright side...
We still have opportunity after opportunity to help the world. In the spirit of Silicon Valley, the schools need to organize a hackathon.
We need to come together to show the world what the greatest stage can produce. This is not only a chance to work together but truly for the betterment of our kind. For years, San Francisco has been at the forefront of trends from hippies to organic everything to the crazy things that come out of Silicon Valley. Please, let us add to the pile and be the first school to shine as a truly incorporated unit.
Imagine the amazing brains of our time all working together, combining forces in tackling critical problems at all angles.
Actually, we should fix the world’s problems rather than take finals. I’m sure I can rally our troops behind that.
