Hey, thanks for your input, those are all helpful points. Yes, perhaps I’ll seek out a few people to ask for feedback.

I hope to! ;) I have an application in for the RA position at the moment - fingers crossed!

Hi Julia. This was interesting to read. Thank you for getting explicit about all the ways that these things can get tricky! As someone from a field (medicine) that seems to foster (equally weird) relationships of variable complexity amongst colleagues and across all "power levels", I've seen and heard of a LOT of these (and yes, been in my fair share of weird situations myself!). Just a point - you can decide not to date someone within the EA community. Like regardless of your feelings, you can actually just make that choice and sometimes that makes life easier. Having a partner who knows NOTHING about your professional world is awesome and having them as an objective outsider who isn't as wrapped up in it all can be quite grounding (speaking from past experience). Seeing your ex multiple times a day when you don't expect it, hearing the gossip about who your previous fling is hooking up with from an unknowing colleague, seeing the guy/gal who said no to a date, knowing that everyone knows your business. LESS awesome. Truly less awesome... I get working with people in close proximity who are inspiring and understand the intricacies of a weird profession can become alluring/attractive but also, the head can rule over the heart. Also, being single and your own person is awesome too!

Hi Dan - great post, you've clearly put a lot of thought and research into this. I read the whole thing.

I'm a (predominantly) emergency doctor so the title of your post caught my eye. I can certainly confirm that stone-related pain brings even the most stoic amongst us through the doors of the ED to seek out help! 

There were a couple of points that came to mind reading your post (and please feel free to take or leave them as you will, they are just preliminary thoughts and I've not put my own research into it, these are just my thoughts and my thoughts with my anecdotal doctor's hat on): 

• Pain vs Suffering: As you've alluded to, pain can be quite unwieldy in its characterization and description. It's also hugely tied to emotions, expectations, and outcomes.  Whilst kidney stones are objectively and subjectively incredibly painful, I've often found that a good explanation of the cause of the pain and the assurance that it WILL pass with time is very reassuring and so the overall suffering attached to that pain experience is less say than the emotional suffering I've seen in patients with chronic intractable pain or pain that has no physical attributable cause (sometimes called functional pain). I do agree though that suffering attached to stones that don't just pass and the operations etc. that might need to come after that can be unpleasant (interestingly and again anecdotally stent-related pain seems to be as bad if not worse than the stone itself and those things can stay in for months!). I just wonder whether it's overall a big enough burden of suffering amongst the other forms of pain/suffering to warrant rigorous efforts to alleviate/prevent it.
• Regarding small stones being downplayed: I don't know that they're necessarily downplayed (even if found as an 'incidentaloma' - for those not familiar: something that pops up on a scan that you weren't looking for; from incidental), but for small stones not causing pain or obstruction, we don't do anything about them straight away, yes (because they might pass and because 'doing' things in medicine is always a trade-off of doing harm vs benefit ie doing stent surgery (in the absence of something to make it go away otherwise) without good cause confers a lot more suffering than an asymptomatic stone!). 
• Radiation stigma: Again, this is a combination of reason and intuition but on the balance of all things considered (ie knowing the disease process, its likelihood etc), would I have a CT scan for a screening test at present? No. Regardless of how low the radiation is, as a young woman, it's a cumulative risk I'll avoid if I can. I think this way for patients too. I guess there's different thinking with age and benefit; mammograms as a screening modality for breast cancer would be an example. Also obviously, US or MRI would remove the radiation risk but then you run into cost and access issues (also a consideration for CT scans) and the need for skilled sonographers.  
• I guess I say the above with the idea that in this space, the preventative approach seems more promising to me in terms of its cost-effectiveness and scalability than the diagnostic or therapeutic approaches. I'm also generally excited about the advances in medical imaging and the intersection with AI that are coming about!

Anyway, thanks again for your post, it was interesting for me to read. 

Hi John - Thanks, this was an interesting read and a concept I didn't know about before reading your post. Interesting to see the numbers. I'm an Australian who is chuffed that the current government got chucked out a matter of hours ago. The opinion polls seem to cite a collective frustration at the outgoing government's lack of commitment to meaningful climate change policies/mitigation. Still, I am doubtful there will be much in the way of dialing back on coal to come.  Morrison holding that piece of coal up never fails to make me shudder. An often missed but crucial point in the discussion around mining/coal in Australia is that it happens on land that always has and always will be Aboriginal land. We benefit from the land that was stolen from the first nations people of Australia. 

Hi Jessica - just wondering if this idea got up off the ground?