Kyle Varner’s Blog

posted by Kyle on Aug 1

posted by Kyle on Jul 9

On a forum that is frequented by a number of AUA students, there was a thread recently started that led to a lot of people expressing a dislike of homosexuals.  I think that this world view is inherently irrational.   Every piece of evidence we have suggests the homosexuality is a biological phenomena, akin to being right or left handed.  How can one pass any sort of moral judgment upon someone whose biological nature leads them to seek their happiness in another direction?  Even if someone has a religious problem with homosexuality, it is likely the case that their religion teaches them something akin to “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”, which would seem to me to indicate that they would not have a problem with homosexuals as such.

In any case, homophobia is utter nonsense, and quite often, I think, the result of some sort of psychological neurosis.  In my experience, most of the people I have met who don’t like homosexuals are those who are undereducated.  In college, there were a number of openly gay students, and no one treated them any differently because of it.  They were just as popular, just as accepted, and just as well-liked as anyone else.  I attributed this to the fact that students had been enlightened by their education and understood the irrationality behind homophobia.

In response to those AUA students who expressed their distaste for homosexuals, I offered the following thoughts on the forum:

 For those of you who are expressing your distaste for homosexuals, I would like to call your attention to a study performed by researchers at the University of Georgia, and published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (which is owned by the APA).

The study compared the sexual arousal of self-reported heterosexual men. The study used the Index of Homophobia to determine whether to assign the men to either the control group (non-homophobic) or the test group (homophobic).

Here is what the study says about the classification:

The score obtained is a measure of “dread” an individual experiences when placed in close quarters with a homosexual; a low score equals low dread, and a high score equals high dread….Because most of the items contain the terms comfortable or uncomfortable, dread can be assumed to mean anticipatory anxiety about interacting with a homosexual person. For example, one item states “I would feel nervous being in a group of homosexuals.” Positive and negative statements are used to control for response set biases. The
authors reported .90 reliability coetficient on a sample of 300 respondents. O’Donahu¢ and Caselles ( 1993, p. 187 ) commented that the authors of the IHP used a “more empirical and psychometrically sophisticated approach than previous researchers who have produced instruments to measure homophobia.”

Here is a synopsis of their results:

In the homophobic group, 20% showed no significant tumescence, 26% showed moderate tumescence, and 54% showed definite tumescence to the homosexual video; the corresponding percentages in the nonhomophobic group were 66%, 10%, and 24%, respectively.

You can read the entire study here: http://www.oogachaga.com/downloads/h…al_arousal.pdf

Quite frankly, homophobia is irrational, and it disappoints me that students at AUA would express these opinions. (I’m not saying that anyone should prevent you from doing so, I’m just saying that I’m disappointed in you for holding such an irrational world view). In any case, I think the joke, “You’re so homophobic you can’t touch yourself” may have a lot of truth to it.

Hopefully this will provoke a little bit of discussion and thought on the topic.  If you are a doctor, you’re going to have patients of all types, and it would behoove you to get over your homophobia before you have to examine a gay man’s inguinal hernia.

posted by Kyle on Jul 8

I like to read about what my life is going to eventually be like.  It helps give me the discipline to complete those 18 hour study marathons!

In any case, I enjoyed reading this post:  Advice for New EM Grads

Yeah, it’s not an explanation of how awesome life is going to be (we all hope we’re going to love every aspect of our lives, don’t we?).  But it helps to keep one’s eyes on the prize to remain motivated.

posted by Kyle on Mar 11

I need to come back to the USA for a weekend to pick up some drugs and textbooks and whatnot.

I was intending to go to Annapolis, because I know so many people there who it would be really nice to see.  The flights there, however, are a real pain in the ass.  I can’t find one that gets back before 11PM on Sunday nights, and I have to be in lab at 8AM on Monday.  I am very picky about my sleep.  This will NOT do.

So, I am considering New York, which has much more convenient flight schedules, and is also close enough to DC that friends will be able to visit.

Soon I will have figured this out!