:mrgreen:

I’ll try to find the source for it but it was compared to various XC tyres.

Might be a bit of a pain to find as I was reading German forums – you know what they’re like for chartzzz and proofs. Even found a review the other day testing the G-forces various downhill helmets impart on the user. You never see that in British mags.

I did my research on these a while back and found they actually increased rolling resistance.

fools

In descending order of usefulness:

Single ply’s when you’re not racing. The new wide EX rims from NoTubes and the massively wide Syntace wheels mean that single ply’s roll a lot less than they used to at low pressures. Thus dual ply’s are arguably only useful for security when racing. This will save at least 1lb of rotating weight which will make the bike much livelier.

Flow EX rims laced with DT Rev spokes. (Syntace MX40’s if you afford them….40mm wide….1800 grams or 35mm wide and 1600 grams….wooot)

Rock Shox Vivid Air

Tioga Spyder Saddle (150ish grams, saving about 100 to 150g over most normal saddles….for a good price)

Lightweight brakes….either XTR’s….the Ones or a Hope race evo M4 front, race evo X2 rear. Perhaps even try the new kettle cycles carbon ceramic rotor if they’re any good (as in actually work at low temps).

KCNC seatpost

Carbon bars

wired on Renthal grips instead of lock ons.

Bikes for sale if any of you ‘chat forum’ big hitters want it. :D

molgrips

Yeah I love the debate that rages around psychological egoism.

In fact it’s kind of the subject of one of my favorite movie quotes, I’m always saddened by this film. Beautiful film……… just beautiful.

“Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness? Truth?” – The Thin Red Line

Cut’s right through to the human condition IMO.

Also, I find it somewhat hilarious that some people on here seem to think that a basic level of care is to hard here are the first ones to bang on about care at mid staffordshire etc. I mean if we can’t expect a lecturer to do a simple task like this properly what hope is there for medics in A&E departments up and down the country?

Brilliant way to encourage students to do their jobs well. Just brilliant…. encouraging a culture of mediocrity right from the outset.

The lecturer is only at the university because a private company pays for her to be there…..she took on one module as a leader to earn some more money.

She only teaches this module and she has pawned all but one of the lessons out to guest speakers. She has nothing to do with admissions – if she’s so busy that she can’t run one module effectively then it’s questionable whether she should be running it.

I just found this out in an e-mail from an inside source. Fun times. As for the lecturers on here whining about how hard their jobs are, try working in the real world where you deal with customers. If people are paying extortionate amounts for an education expect them to act like consumers.

Let me also add I’ve just about had enough of the way universities seem to think they can get away with dire incompetency….for example I’ve had three pieces of coursework lost on separate occasions in close succession by one university departmental office. Nothing was done about that and they seemed to be perfectly happy to try and accuse me of never handing the work in until I produced photo’s of my work being posted through the pigeon holes. I never once received an apology for that one from the staff involved.

I’m going to go stateside next time where they understand the concept of competing for students money instead of taking it for granted.

No it doesn’t but it does have everything to do with getting an education, there is a difference.

Also I don’t really see what learning has to do with poor or shoddy course material and examinations.

In fact I’m slightly perplexed by your choice of insults really, as a fellow troll I know one when I see them.

Anyway….I’m definitely off to bed now.

I hope that apostrophe in ‘put’s’ is there as a joke!

:P

I’m trying to have some fun. Realized I just put “You’re” where I shouldn’t have…..FFS!

I’ll get my coat….screw you guys….I’m going home.

You failed too because foreign students pay more than you.

Doesn’t that kind of play into my point? They pay even more extortionate fees and should therefore probably get semi-competent lecturers.

Okay Grum you win this time.

Git.

*Sheepishly put’s dunce hat on*

Get’s my gloat’? Oh dear.

God damnit! Sunk my own battleship, read “goat”. :mrgreen:

Chewkw, I might listen to you if you could string a coherent sentence together. As it appears, you’re ability to do so is no better than my lecturers.

They do not need to give you the time of the day apart from those stipulated in their contract you know. Just because you pay for your tuition fees you think you can demand more?

No, I just think it’s reasonable to assume that exams lack grammatical mistakes, lack spelling mistakes, lack answers that are repeated twice, include only one correct answer instead of two correct answers (where one is deemed wrong) and lack questions whereby two answers are exactly the same.

I’ll ignore that, have a nice day mate! :D

I’ve no doubt you know your stuff regarding EBM and obviously have some prior medical knowledge/background but seriously if you are going to be working with members of the public and get so worked up and stressed about things, you will make yourself ill or simply won’t be doing it for long.

And I don’t mean that to be deliberately provoking. Its genuine advice – working with/for patients is a serious mental drain sometimes…

I’ve worked in plenty of stressful situations, what get’s my gloat is when I’m paying for that privilege.

Everyone has good and bad days, it happens when you’ve been stuck inside all day for weeks during the deadline period. I’ve gotten over it now. Just needed to vent, it’s better to let that out than bottle it up hey?

For sure. During the OP I was just wound up and stressed (I’d spent dozens of hours revising for example when and which colorectal cancer drugs to give and was then faced with the most inane question I have ever read in my life). After that I was defending myself.

I’d taken the test very seriously, as we were told to. It seemed to me that the lecturer hadn’t.

Thanks anyway chaps. It was fun arguing some more with you lot.

No I’ll pass, just not with the mark I worked for.

The purpose of a test is to give the answers the examiners are looking for.

That’s probably where I’m not able to compromise, ever.

But, some of these questions were just wrong or badly worded. eg the colorectal cacner drug question. That’s all there is to it.

Of course Zokes, but there has to be a certain level of engagement by the lecturer.

Otherwise what’s the point? I could get the same education by reading your papers whilst I was in an on the job training scheme.

I know full well that at Oxbridge the level of actual teaching/lecturing is of a much higher quality than what many students have experienced, with lower student to staff ratio’s and a lot more one on one tuition. So I do disagree slightly with the idea that lecturers can get away with putting very little effort in because students are meant to be doing everything themselves.

Sometimes assessment isn’t designed to find out what you know, it can be designed to examine how you’d react to a stressful experience.
Weeds out the cocks.

Yes I know all about those kinds of tests, they’re great if you’re in the military or someones testing your ability to keep calm in a dire clinical situation.

Not really the point in a purely academic situation is it.

And obviously without research, there is nothing to be taught.

Definitely, I’m in complete agreement with you Zokes.

I do however think there is a fine line between a blatant disregard for teaching and being busy due to research etc. It doesn’t take much to write semi-competent MCQ’s. I could riff off 100 well worded questions answers 3 hours or so.

After all, at the end of the day you have a duty to pass on the knowledge that others so kindly taught you. I’d like to think that if I was in her position, I would do my best to try to inspire the next generation of academics and not lead them down the road towards cynicism.

I have some lecturers who are great, you can get tea/coffee with them to discuss various topics and they take a genuine interest in engaging with you. Now I do not expect that from everyone as I know this is hard. I do however expect a little effort and time on the part of a lecturer, being given to students.

Interesting thread this, I’m also in agreement with Woppit.

Nice work :mrgreen:

You failllleedd … again.

Here some answer for you …

That paper is all well and good for deciding a drug regimen when you have a more detailed question/patient profile.

you sure it wasn’t “which one isn’t…?”

Yup. I have the question and answer in front of me.

ASK THE F’IN LECTURER

She hasn’t replied to my e-mails. In fact she hasn’t replied to half the classes angry e-mails.

You faileddd … (in Family Guy’s Stewie’s accent)

Explain how you are meant to choose between those two drugs given the the lack of detail in the question. Eenie meenie miney mo?

Although I will add that there was one question that read exactly as follows “Which of the following drugs is used in the treatment of colorectal cancer”

And the choice was between Cetuximab and Bevacizumab plus a couple of randoms.

Can anyone explain that one to me, was it the lecturers idea of a joke? If it was, it was totally lost on me.

Learning it’s got a bit to do with listening. If you decide you know better you will learn nothing. That is your waste of money.

Good point.

Yeah for sure, I totally agree with you on that.

I guess what I’m was to get as is that there was no one answer to the question that was more right than the other. Data, clinical expertise and patient values are all equally important.

Would you put a 90 year old man through many months worth of painful inconvenient treatment to prolong his life by an additional 6 months? It’s an ideal world scenario, money and treatment are infinite and his treatment is not taking resources from another area, it’s just about the patient and the clinical outcome.

Of course not muppet! But I guess not forcing an old man to take painful treatments at the age of 90 was common sense. But this was kind of my point, good patient care should always be the objective or outcome of techniques such as EBM. But what really drives the ability of a clinician to help inform a patient of their choices is the underlying evidence!

I totally agree with your post muppetwrangler – maybe I just over-analyzed the question to much in the exam.

So given that you’ve decided that EBM is a component of care, rather than the other way round, does that mean you are now in agreement with her?

No because the question was “What’s the most important aspect of EBM”…not “Why is EBM important”.

Again as I said, I think it was utterly ridiculous that this question was asked in a multiple choice format.

Just to highlight why I thought the question was ridiculous….it turns out EBM doesn’t work without any of the following three concepts being involved.

So equal importance, which brings me back to my point….why the **** was this an MCQ?

Ok, whilst I was nursing a massive hangover I asked myself if I was wrong on this. I tried, I really did but I can’t see the other view point – someone gave an example earlier (i think) of a patient taking a drug/something that is making them feel better whilst there being no evidence to support it’s use….as a way of making a point.

Let’s try a scenario to counter this. Bare with my as I’m still worse for wear from last night.

A 26 year old female patient presents symptoms to physicians that are most likely psychogenic/anxiety related – the patient has decided to take a new natural medicine for whatever it is that is wrong with them. It seems to be working as their symptoms subside, the medics who are involved in the case do not discourage the patient to stop taking the natural remedy as they’ve decided the placebo effect has relieved her anxiety. Three weeks later the patient develops liver failure and dies, several years later after extensive studies have been performed on the plant extract it’s realized that this plant can cause liver failure in patients taking combined oral contraceptives.

Now was this a failure of care, or a failure to find good data before recommending it’s use?

It was a failure in EBM/data that lead to an unintentional failure in care, despite the best intentions of the medics they saw nothing wrong with the patient carrying on taking their herbal medicine – even though they knew very little about it’s effects both positive and negative. Therefore they were unable to give the patient the best possible advice based on good data.

Care isn’t a component of EBM….it’s the other way round, EBM is a component of care. You can’t make the best possible choice or inform a patient of their best choices without good evidence.

P.S This is almost a chicken and the egg scenario which I feel has no place in a multiple choice exam, it would have been better asked in an essay based exam.

Well, I dealt with this by getting.

Can barely feel my own fingers let alone type right now. That exam was worth a lot of marks. feeling as if I wasted a lot of money. There was no effort in “”teaching”, all this lecturer wants to do…. like many others…. is to get on with their research. They don’t care, waste of god damn money…..I could teach myself this shit my renting out books in a library but instead I have to pay assholes like this to make me jump through their half arsed or illogical hoops.

Unfortunately, this seems to occur after the sale of such things…

Hence why data analysis needs to be improved, not (in this case) patient care.

More rigorous trialing of drugs with data collected from multiple independent labs and a subsequent meta-analysis of this data could have prevented this.

No comments on the video?

Nope, didn’t data analysis help to spot the problems at Staffs?

But the company used various techniques to sell their product, which ignored the data. I’ve still got Lilly pens in my locker from the big marketing push…

You will learn that data is much less important than money…

Lying about/misrepresenting something is a failure in care yes, but it was also a failure in EBM.

RCT’s cannot be trusted by themselves, they need rigorous meta-analysis to cut through the bias…..as I said, failure in EBM.

That didn’t effect anything to do with EBM did it….EBM is not a physical thing that can be touched. It was a failure in basic human compassion and care.

No, the pharma company had good data. Everyone else (Cochrane) realized they didn’t, hence why meta-analysis is becoming ever more important in EBM.

That was a failure in EBM….specifically to much credibility being given to RCT’s.

It’s stuff like this that led to the Staffordshire scandal.

Data helped uncover the staffordshite scandal.

EBM is a methodological technique, that is all. It’s not some fluffy human concept like “care”.

I care about patients but me caring doesn’t make my EBM techniques any better. Good data does.

Drotrecogin alfa was a failure in decent data!

Next you’ll be telling me that we shouldn’t use techniques for which there is very little evidence after the evidence based techniques have failed.

Yup, that would be correct. If data can’t support it, it shouldn’t be used – especially if there are significant sides.

To go off on a wee tangent. I work in physio

Oh god. You weren’t the Chiro were you?