The Other Colors of Green Tea

Recently I have been going through a tea phase...I have been obsessed with drinking tea, specifically green tea.  As I was drinking tea the other day, I developed a huge worry about whether or not green tea would stain my teeth.  A dentist is a type of doctor so this would not be too far off my interest in the medical field (justifying my desire to learn what exactly green tea's effects are); plus there will be the other effects that green tea has on the body, so onward~
Green tea has many great benefits that come with drinking it.  It has a lot of antioxidants (perfect during this time of the year so you don't get sick; plus it's a hot drink!), and there are even studies going on to see if green tea has an effect on cancer.  Some studies have found that drinking green tea inhibits cancer growth and reduces the risk of cancer development.  Plus green tea makes blood vessels less vulnerable to getting clogged; although of course healthy diet and exercise will always be the main help for that.  Many of these studies were taken over a long period of time though, where green tea became a regular drink in the peoples' lives.
This does not mean to go out and drink 50 cups of green tea a day.  There are still some negative effects of drinking too much of this delicious drink.  While green tea is much healthier than coffee, it surprisingly may still contain a lot of caffeine (depending on the brand).  An 8 ounce coffee cup can have 95 milligrams of caffeine, and an 8 ounce green tea cup may contain as much as 50 milligrams (drinking green tea out of a teabag has more caffeine than the leaves)!  And going back to my main concern: tea stains.
All types of tea stain your teeth; although they do not stain as much as other drinks or acidic things like lemons do, tea will still stain your teeth.  The color of the tea actually has a role on how much damage it will do - black tea is the most "acidic" of teas while green tea bends toward the more basic or alkaline side of teas.  Sweetened teas will cause much more damage than unsweetened as all the sugar drowning your teeth will cause your teeth to erode and encourage cavities.  While green tea can erode your teeth, it takes a much longer time than sweetened teas or juices.  To prevent staining, you could try rinsing your mouth with water after drinking tea or brushing your teeth at least an hour after you drink tea (to allow your natural saliva to counter its effects on your enamel).
Overall, moderation is key - as it is in many cases in life.  I love green tea but I also love my teeth so I guess I must limit myself to...a cup a day.

Rant and Types of Doctors

I'm still very upset over the fact that AP Chem was not offered as a class this year.  Ever since I decided to be a doctor, I planned out the courses I needed to take to have a head start on my medical education.  Of course, AP Chem was on that list.  After taking regular Chemistry (they didn't offer Chemistry Honors in my year...which makes me even more annoyed) and doing well in it, I wanted to take AP Chem the continuous year (this year).  But no, the school stops offering it and ruins my plans.  Instead I had to talk to the counselors and switch over the non-existent AP Chem class to an AP Physics class.  And I'm not particularly enjoying that physics class..  I suppose I should stop whining over it and move on.
I have said I want to be a doctor but I suppose it's time that I actually figure out what kind of doctor.
There are so many different types of doctors...pathologists (deals with the body), pediatricians (deals with children), optometrists (deals with eyes), neurologists (deals with the brain), dermatologists (deals with skin), and many more.  And then within those there are the surgeons, specialists, general doctors, emergency, the list can go on.  And the scary thing is that it is a necessary list.  There is not one person who can specialize in all the fields, or even two of them.  The knowledge needed for each is just too extensive.  The whole process takes so long, four years of graduate school, four years of medical, about another two years of residency, and then going into specialization.  Although nursing would take less time, I suppose it's a matter of pride for me - my family has many close family friends who are doctors and anything less than being a doctor is just not as appealing.  My pride is strange (of course my desire to become a doctor is not simply from pride).
I enjoy working with children, so being a pediatrician called to me.  I also really find it interesting to be in a research lab and discovering things in there.  But I have this preconceived notion that people in research labs usually keep to themselves, and I like talking to others and conversing.  I feel that becoming a surgeon would hold too much pressure - that's someone's life that is in your hands.  I suppose I should intern at places and shadow doctors before I seriously consider which path to take (or I might end up taking one and finding it not to my liking).  Actually being in the room and watching how things happen rather than imagining, is a much better indicator for me.
I can never seem to make up my mind.

Time and Tact

I remember walking down the hallways of the hospital and seeing so many people just sitting in their hospital beds with maybe one or two people by their bed.  How are there so many sick people in the world?  It was rather humorous that when I arrived at my dad's room, he would always have at least two or three people by his bed visiting.  When he was in UCLA, you would have to call in in order to go to his room because he was in ICU and all the nurses not only knew my dad's case in and out but also knew the fact that he had so many visitors and people who cared for him. The head doctors would check up on my dad every so often and I remember when the head surgeon was telling him that he would try to fit my dad's surgery into his schedule - right in between a transplant and an emergency case.  To me it seems as though doctors either have a lot of time for themselves or no time at all.  Many of my parents' close friends are doctors yet they still are able to spend a lot of time with us.  It is possibly because they have already been in their fields for quite some time but I'm not sure.  I know I want to help people get better, but I also know that I do not want to be swamped with an incredible amount of work. 
Another thing that I worry about is bedside manners.  Recently, I was talking with one of my father's friends and he was telling me about how his brother had to have his pancreas removed.  The doctors had pulled him (the friend) and his mother out of the room during the surgery to tell them that the brother would not make it - although he has been alive now for over twenty years.  How are you supposed to have any tact in saying something like that?  When my dad was going through all that was happening to him, one of the doctors had absolutely no tact with his bedside manners.  As they were carting my dad off to one of his procedures, one of the first things the doctor bluntly told us was: "He may die".  Sure we want to know all the possible side effects but to say it that bluntly and without any sympathy was just horrible.  Needless to say we were all in tears and stressed out of our minds.  How do you prevent that?  Being a doctor you affect so many peoples' lives, not just the patients but also their families and friends. 

People have always asked me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And it was only recently (around last year or so) that I started answering, "A doctor!".  I am rather indecisive and slowly "a doctor" had "or something in the medical field" tacked onto it.  I suppose I should aim high and if it does not work out then it does not work out - but I should probably keep my goals high first.  It's just that my brother has been studying for his MCAT and he keeps telling me how I need to get my study habits together now if I want to do well in just college in general.  He had been studying for about seven hours a day or more for his MCAT and still feels he isn't ready (well other things had been going on in our family as well).
That brings me back to one of the reasons why I wanted to be a doctor - what had been going on in my family.  This year around the end of February, my father went to the hospital due to some intense stomach pains he had been feeling.  I know I did not take it seriously and so I was extremely surprised when that same night, the hospital made him stay over.  They ran tests and tests; it was only after a specialist looked at one of the results, did another test, and found inflammation on his intestine did they realize that they had been looking for the wrong things.  And even after a week or so of my dad staying in the hospital they still could not figure out what was wrong with him.  Finally when they found that he had an AVM, they found that while normally AVMs are the size of your pinky fingernail and in your brain, his was the size of a softball and in a rare place that no doctors (and I mean no doctors) were used to dealing with - in his intestinal area.  It was such a stressful time and for months the doctors did not know what to do with him.  They sent him down to UCLA because that is where the specialists of the stomach area are, and the doctors all were stumped.  I wanted to help somehow; I wanted to do something.  But there was nothing that I could do to help and often times I had no idea what the doctors were saying when talking to my dad.  It was only recently that my dad got surgery to remove part of his intestine, and that was because the doctors in UCLA messed up a bit in trying to treat him.  I'm not saying that they are incompetent - far from it actually - it's just that this type of case had never been dealt with before (or there were no recorded cases that were like it) and they were all just very confused.
A doctor being confused.  That's a scary thought.
I think I should ask my dad what exactly had been going on...and try to learn more about it.  I'm not sure what type of doctor I would like to be yet but getting a better knowledge of these types of things seems to be a good start.