Pet peeve

I'm often stuck for an answer when asked about my pet peeves, but I think I've recently got one: I hate reading medical journals that are filled with platitudes, non-specific guidelines and cliches. Things like ''everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison. (Paracelsus)", or "the only certainty is that there is uncertainty", should be reserved for public addresses, philosophical musings or random bloggings where the only responsibility to the audience is to guarantee a wasted time.

If you have to use one, please use sparingly. Just as too much salt causes high blood pressure, too many platitudes aren't doing any wonders for my amygdala.

As a scientist, researcher or medical practitioner, we read journal articles to glean specific information that is applicable to our research or case study. We don't need to know your personal beliefs when we are reviewing pages and pages of literature. Generalisations and conceptual abstracts can be thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting and what-have-you, but in the right context, please.

Don't even get me started on disease aetiology. If I have to reading something along the lines of 'complex interaction of multiple factors', or 'genetic and environmental interplay' one more time...It's either that or it's idiopathic. Yes, we are a load of idiots who don't know what's really going on.

The worst part of it is, as much as we students (or at least, I) complain, I realise that us students do it too. Because we see teachers doing it, we assume it is what they are looking out for (an assumption which is not totally erroneous), and model after it.