With many events on their schedule that include only Division I opponents, the UCSD track and field teams are often underrated and taken lightly. This past weekend, however, the Tritons enhanced UCSD's reputation and quieted their D-I critics with a very impressive performance at the All-Cal Championships. Hosted by UC Irvine, the competition also included UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and UC Davis.

Courtesy of Tony Solerno
Junior Whitney Johnson earned two first-place finishes at the All-Cal Championships, hosted by UC Irvine on March 3, in the long jump and triple jump events with impressive distances of 19 feet, 1.5 inches and 40 feet, 4.75 inches, respectively to help her team earn second place overall.

The Tritons proved their worth, with the women's team placing second overall and the men's finishing in third. Senior hurdler Dan Noel was extremely pleased with how his team fared against the top-division schools.

""As a team, we deserve the same level of respect, regardless of division,"" Noel said. ""Sometimes people get lost in the fallacy of Division I domination and forget that what matters is who is better prepared to compete on any given day.""

The women not only showed that they could compete with the D-I schools, but that they have the potential to beat them. All day long the women vied for the meet championship, but unfortunately came up just four points short, losing to UC Santa Barbara.

Courtesy of Tony Solerno
Sophomore sprinter Connor McCabe had a third-place finish with his time of 11.45 seconds in the 100-meter dash at the All-Cal Championships.

The runner-up finish was no reflection on just how well the team did.

The Triton women earned six first-place finishes at the meet, highlighted by two each from junior hurdler Laiah Blue and junior jumper Whitney Johnson. Blue dominated the 100- and 400-meter hurdles with times of 14.05 and 61.47 seconds, respectively.

Johnson set the all-time UCSD record with her distances in both the long jump, 19 feet, 1.5 inches, and the triple jump, 40 feet, 4.75 inches. Becoming the school record holder was a thrill for Johnson, but it also came with its fair share of anxiety.

""It felt great to set those [distances],"" Johnson said. ""But it also makes me a little nervous for the rest of the season. I really want to be able to continue hitting those marks later in the season and be able to have even better marks at conference championships and nationals.""

Also receiving first-place finishes were freshman sprinter Christine Merrill in the 200 dash and senior thrower Samantha Belvini in the javelin throw.

Even though all these victories were not enough to grab the meet championship, the team's efforts will carry into the rest of its season, where more first-place finishes are expected.

""Once our team, which is a really young team, starts getting into [its] zone, we'll start to win championships,"" Johnson said.

Even though the men didn't place as high as the women, they were able to leave the All-Cal meet with some serious hardware of their own.

Junior hurdler Khalil Hooper got himself a top finish in the 110 hurdles by posting a time of 15.25 seconds.

Similarly, freshman jumper Chris Yu's distance of 21 feet, 11.75 inches in the long jump was more than enough for him to grab first place. Sophomore sprinter Connor McCabe rounded out the Tritons' top finishes by breaking the tape in the 100 dash in 11.45 seconds, a time good enough to earn him third place.

After playing in front of away crowds for the first two meets of the year, the Tritons finally get to race at home this weekend when they play host to the San Diego City Championships on March 10.

At the meet, UCSD will square off against San Diego State, Point Loma Nazarene University and Cal State San Marcos. No matter how the Tritons fare at the meet, they will be guaranteed to improve their standing from last year's city championships.

The 2006 championship was held on an incredibly rainy day, which greatly affected the times of all players involved. The coaches decided not to cancel the meet, but did not announce the winner due to the altered times.

With nothing but beautiful San Diego sun forecasted for March 10, the Tritons are in a great position to capture their first team championship, and will pride themselves with parading that championship in front of their home fans for the first time all season.

Noel is eager for the first home meet of the season and has high expectations for his team.

""I am excited to have our first home competition,"" Noel said. ""Hopefully, the comfort of our home track will bring some big performances by both the men's and women's side.""

“Belle De Jour” – March 8, 7 p.m. – MCASD, $5

A few weeks ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego offered us Bunuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” — and today it big-screens another of his classics: “Belle De Jour.” The film follows Severine (Catherine Deneuve), a bored housewife who indulges in secret desires and becomes a prostitute. Balancing her erotic fantasies with a lack of intimacy at home proves no easy task, especially when different men begin to enter her life. Bunuel balances the true struggles of sexuality with the surreal elements of the mind’s eye, never becoming condescending, but rather stepping back and letting the characters act naturally — a great film on all accounts. (CM)

Eileen Myles & Ali Liebegott – March 9, 7 p.m. – D.G.Wills, La Jolla, FREE

If you’ve never experienced the exuberance of UCSD’s writing series on campus, then you can get a taste on Friday when two prominent writer/professors, Eileen Myles and Ali Liebegott, will read from their newly-published books. Myles, the patron saint of razor-edge, feminist punk poetry, will be reading from “Sorry, Tree,” her new collection of poems on love and politics. Liebegott, a poet and fiction writer, will read from her critically acclaimed debut novel “The IHOP Papers,” which is filled with her signature philosophical compassion and innocent maturity set amongst all-too-real situations. Each approaches her work with curious honesty and a search for unexplored truth. (CM)

Dear Editor,

Regarding Jim Shen's article ""Controversial Origins"" on Feb. 26 and Jeremiah Runyan's and Eddie Herrera's subsequent letters to the editor: When Albert Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity in 1915, it was met with enormous resistance and controversy. Yet he did not lobby legislators to enact laws to force its teaching into classrooms or start a public relations campaign to influence the public debate. He presented his ideas in public where their validity could be challenged by experiments. It wasn't until 1959 that technology improved enough to show that Einstein's predictions offer our best understanding of the universe.

Despite Runyan's and Herrera's passionate defense of intelligent design, the theory has not yielded any empirical evidence that supports it or that directly challenges evolution. There is a fundamental distinction between the search for intelligent design in archaeology, which involves the study of physical remains left behind by ancient human cultures (human design), and the search for the supernatural in explaining the origin of man. Runyan and Herrera lack an understanding of the scientific process. ID proposes that there are biological systems in nature that are ""irreducibly complex,"" and therefore the only plausible explanation is the presence of an intelligent agent.

Simply saying something appears too complicated to be the product of evolution does not prove the alternative hypothesis of ID. If ID is truly hypothesis-driven and testable, then its supporters must provide evidence for the intelligent agent and its effects on the natural world. Supporters have not even proposed experiments that directly test their hypothesis, let alone provide evidence.

ID also proposes that the fossil record does not have enough intermediate species. This claim is continuously being refuted by paleontologists uncovering new species, including the recent and notable discovery of a transitional fish fossil from the late Devonian age (approximately 375 million years ago) which has fins and scales, but also a neck and the precursors to modern shoulders, wrists and elbows (Nature, April 6, 2006).

The more we discover about nature, the more evolution fits the data. Herrera's definition of science is wrong: Science is not a belief system and scientists do not ""believe in evolution."" We accept or reject theories based on empirical evidence.

Theories are constantly revised as new evidence is produced, and often times scratched entirely when they can no longer explain it. ID as an explanation for our origins is a belief system, as Herrera notes, because it requires faith that God shaped the process. These are beliefs that are neither provable nor testable, and therefore not science.

Scientists look at a problem and say, ""We don't know what the answer is yet, but if we ask the right questions and do the right experiments, maybe we will some day."" ID looks at the same questions and says, ""We don't have an answer for this yet, so it must be the work of an undetectable intelligent agent.""

I would hate to think we are trading our pioneering spirit of discovery in favor of giving up because things seem too complicated or because we're too impatient for answers.

- Aaron S. Parker

Graduate Student

Division of Biological Sciences

The widespread Mardi Gras celebrations have died down - and for many Christians, they've been replaced with the grueling 40 days and nights of sacrifice known as Lent. Whether this means abstaining from junk food, swearing or masturbation, generally it is not a time practitioners of Lent look forward to.

It's not hard to see why most wouldn't look forward to Lent. According to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, there has been a nearly 20-percent increase in consumption of alcohol by college students since the 1980s. This is merely one example of the increasing prevalence of vice. But despite this trend, self discipline shouldn't apply only to those of faith, nor should it be reserved only for special seasons such as Lent.

To put it simply, Lent is a time of alms giving, fasting and increased worship. It's best known for the requirement to give something up for the entirety of the season, lasting from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday - symbolic of the same 40 days Jesus was tempted by the devil but resisted. This is supposed to be a time for sacrifice and self reflection, during which sin is discarded.

The main ideology of the tradition is embodied by the difficult sacrifice Jesus made by giving his life up for the salvation of sinners. More than just his bravery, Lent is about recognizing the ideal for which he stood - that it's possible to sacrifice sin and instead help your fellow man. Sadly, however, Lent is commonly misunderstood.

The religious practice is deeper than a bunch of Christians acting their best for 40 days and nights - it's a symbolic season encouraging everyone to take a stand against hedonism. The time should be spent reflecting on the vices in life and striving to understand the trivial nature of such vices.

Take the vice gluttony. At one point or another, most students at UCSD have looked in the mirror and wanted to lose a few pounds. Their goals, however, would likely be more tenable if they instead attempted more self-discipline.

Instead of focusing on selfish interests and thus encouraging materialism, Lent should be a time reach out and help others. According to a study conducted by HERI, volunteer work has dropped over 44 percent among college students since 2003. It's clear that altruism is a dying ideal in the midst of a society where materialism and individualism are emphasized.

With this in mind, the problem with Lent is that it is viewed as a temporary ordeal - almost a chore. It's as if being moral has been manifested as something undesirable. Society has reached a point where immorality and lack of discipline is the norm (just take a look at the lyrics in contemporary rap music) and altruism has to hold some reward to encourage practice (extracurricular activities for college admissions for example). Feats of altruism have become extraordinary while vices such as pornography have become rampant. In other words, there is a trend to sacrifice ideals and replace with them with depravity.

Sure, one could argue that life is too short to spend constantly abstaining from indulgence - but honestly, at what point is the excess just that? We were raised with the false notion that substance abuse, sex and other superficial ideals to be happy are acceptable practices. The innocence of happiness has been lost and the simplest things have lost their meaning. Society is increasingly becoming enslaved to the depravity created by manmade media, and ideals such as Lent are now revolutions against such hedonism.

We shouldn't wait for Lent to remind us about the value of sacrifice and altruism. It shouldn't be a burden for us to sacrifice our vices for 40 days and the ideals of Lent should be integrated into our daily lives - Christian or not. The core ideals of Lent are not reserved just for the pious but for the secular as well and should be observed all 365 days of the year, not a mere 40 and perhaps finally people will be able to lose those extra five pounds they've been putting off.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that I've been a customer of the campus's psychological services. As the youngest sibling of three, my persona draws from a childhood spent tableside and bedside, ears open to stern, long-winded and often conflicting advice from elders.

I've since been a walking sponge of sorts, drinking in all the counsel and input possible in preparation for an unforeseen day when I'm asked, ""Do you understand yourself?"" So, contextually, it makes sense that later in life, I would find my comfort zone in an easy chair, in front of another adult telling me what things mean and what to do about them.

This month, I will have spent a year away from that chair and the shrink across from it.

So, in therapeutic fashion, this piece is meant to chronicle a trek across years of psychological development (or regression, if you want to be mean about it), and hopefully provide some amount of useful introspection for other furniture-familiar students - and there are many.

In 2004, UCSD Psychological Services served 2,000 students (a figure pulled from an article this newspaper published on issues of staff shortages and budgetary deficiencies).

A year later, a university-commissioned report on students' mental health formalized the problem: UCSD, specifically, had about 11.5 full-time employees at the time, a ratio of one psychologist to every 2,300 students. In some cases, the picture was even darker for other UC campuses, most of them reeling from the same state and administrative budget cuts that racked our campus in 2003-04.

Modern-day politicalization of all things is inevitable, though it is truly sad when such a mindset is applied to health care. A personality becomes a number, and the intangibilities that we enjoy about life become demarcated in a colder, more definable manner. Revelle College then-sophomore Tracy Ho, an interviewee for the previously mentioned Guardian article, was one of many statistics forced to wait weeks for one appointment. Ho was then referred to UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest, after her on-campus counselor told her there were not enough staff to accommodate her longer-term needs.

I was luckier. My own campus therapist was both earnest and excitable, always pushing mental homework - which included forced conversation, Excel charts scribbled with daily emotive discourses and physical exercise. My give-to-get mentality kept me in the program week after week, but throughout it I realized, ""Man, mental health is hard to sustain.""

It's a hard world out there. The hermit archetype is all but dead; it's impossible to drop all things to wander into the desert alone, Biblical-like.

Today's world is a primitive one, where we are forced into moral fights as we sit and deal with our problems, our spouse's problems, our neighbors' problems, our children's problems - the list is infinite.

I often reflect on my own therapist's investment in me (he extended me past the 12-session limit and continued the meetings until I cut them off), and realized further that other students lack such a luxury. Even a small deterrent - i.e. having to take a weekly bus trip to Hillcrest - is enough to stymie a student from seeking help for mental health issues.

The last of my regular sessions occurred in the campus's newest offices, in a collection of buildings that emanated an unsettling dead-tech, postmodern ambience. It was an unabashedly cold design for an environment meant to fit every warm, welcoming, couch-laying typecast.

By the tail end of my therapy, I concluded that there was something self-serving about paying to talk about yourself - sessions became, for me, something unbecoming and shameful. But because departmental fees are divvied up to make on-campus psychological care free, students can enjoy one more degree of separation from embarrassment, and I can stop prying conversations with the ""hey, it's free"" defense.

But are psych services ""free,"" in the word's strictest sense? Students pay mandatory fees, which have been directed to other campus units in previous years. But this is no whine-fest, stumping for psychological services while cutting down Student Affairs officials (who dole out fee money); this is a sincere reflection on the street-level impact of budget movers and shakers.

I'll be forever indebted to my therapist's devotion, though such an extended experience in therapy is an anomaly for the cash-strapped state and university. But even just one session offered me a memorable epiphany: There is a gaping abyss between self-awareness and self-improvement, and I'm still trying to build a bridge to the latter. The issue of mental health, in all its sensitivity, can be supported by even a simple act, such as enrolling in one session.

A simple slight, however, can be damaging on an equal level, and staffing and funding shortfalls are in no way simple.

When the UC Regents meet on March 14, millions of dollars of student money will be in their hands. In Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's January budget proposal, he recommended that undergraduate student fees be raised 7 percent for the 2007-08 academic year, with some UC law and business programs facing 10-percent hikes. However, California's nonpartisan fiscal adviser, the Legislative Analyst's Office, urged that fees only be increased 2.4 percent for all programs, arguing that given the absence of an explicit policy on student fee increases, fees should continue to cover the same share of educational costs. The LAO's increase would account for inflation.

It is time for the regents to formulate a fee policy that is more transparent than their current ""compact"" with Schwarzenegger, which stipulates that fees always rise in accordance with California's per-capita income (not inflation rates) in addition to increases (up to 10 percent total) that the board feels the UC system needs.

Essentially, this means that under the compact, the regents can raise student fees up to 10 percent per year with very limited accountability.

It's no secret that the regents and the state of California have been leaning on students to subsidize the university's bills at their discretion.

However, an explicit fee policy from the board that protects student interests in the face of much more powerful political actors would reflect an attitude of respect toward the population that gives the university its leverage as the premier educator of California's future.

This year's A.S. Council deserves credit for taking a cue from the Undergraduate Student Experience and Satisfaction report and making an effort to revive beer gardens. And the accompanying advertising campaign hasn't been too shabby either, with plenty of high-visibility posters and even a Facebook group to get the word out.

The price of success: a 20-minute wait at the door of the last Bear Garden, followed by an hour-long wait in line for your plastic cup of booze. With such a wait, students might as well pick up a minimum-wage job for an hour and spend the money they earn on a pair of pints at Porter's Pub, which has a far wider selection of brews, far fewer rent-a-cops and practically no line.

But the popularity of this year's beer gardens - and the lack of disturbances at them - drives home two important points. For one, including booze at on-campus events actually does encourage participation. Administrators should consider this when they decide whether to allow alcohol sales at the RIMAC Annex.

More importantly, the gardens show that with careful planning, UCSD can host wet events and still ensure student safety, assuaging the administration's long-standing and completely understandable concern.

With a year of positive experiences, the door should be open to slowly expand the Bear Gardens, maybe through finding a new venue or streamlining the current one. It wouldn't hurt to bring in bands, either, like at the Thank God It's Fridays of yore. With a little compromise and responsibility on both sides, the UCSD experience can be made far more memorable and special than it is now.

Two Arrested for Body Part Trading at UCLA

The UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine has suspended its program for accepting donated human bodies in the wake of a discovery of illicit body-part trading. An employee of the school and an independent tissue broker are alleged to have used UCLA resources in order to supply body parts for various biotechnology firms and research institutions.

Henry Reid, director of the program, was arrested on March 6 on charges of grand theft.

He is suspected of allowing tissue broker Ernest Nelson to remove and trade the body parts of nearly 500 cadavers from the university over a period of six years, generating a profit of over $700,000.

Reid was coincidentally hired by UCLA in 1997 to correct such problems in handling cadavers. University officials say they are now deciding how to compensate for the university's loss of access to human specimens.

Biotechnology companies and academic institutes use body parts for medical research and training purposes. Though the sale of human body parts is illegal in the United States, firms profit by charging to cover the costs of supplying specimens, which can run up to thousands of dollars for a single human body.

Similar instances have occurred in the past decades at medical facilities at UC Irvine and UCSD.

Attempts to enact stronger state and federal regulation are often hindered by institutions lobbying for ready access to tissue.

UC Irvine Opens Hydrogen Fuel Station

On Feb. 27, UC Irvine celebrated the grand opening of its automobile hydrogen fueling station.

The station is the first in California capable of dispensing hydrogen at 700 bar, or the equivalent of 10,000 pounds per square inch.

In some cases, this nearly doubles a vehicle's driving range.

The station provides the latest in fueling technology, meeting the demands of vehicle development programs directed by automakers Toyota, Nissan, Honda, General Motors and Daimler Chrysler.

""The world looks to California as the testing ground for next-generation automobile technologies,"" UC Irvine's National Fuel Cell Research Center Director Scott Samuelsen said in a press release. ""The shift to a hydrogen economy is … a dramatic and fundamental shift in the way that individuals will operate their vehicles in the future.""

The emissions from a hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle contain only water vapor.

Today, hydrogen can be produced from nonpetroleum gas sources, potentially reducing our current reliance on petroleum for the future.

The facility looks similar to a gas station, with stand-alone dispensers delivering pure gaseous hydrogen. According to the California Fuel Cell Partnership, 23 hydrogen stations exist in California, with 14 more planned. Automakers say that they may begin selling fuel cell vehicles by the year 2010.

In the shortest meeting of the year, which lasted just 29 minutes, the A.S. Council moved to Porter's Pub to allow ""Lunafest"" to occupy Price Center Ballroom. Eleanor Roosevelt College Senior Senator Erik Rodriguez-Palacios was the speaker of the council for the meeting, substituting for Earl Warren College Senior Senator and Speaker Michelle Yetter, who opted out of the session because she was sick.

A.S. President Harry Khanna announced he was working with university officials to extend the hours of CLICS. He also proposed that the library be open 24 hours all of 10th week and during finals. Khanna is coordinating with the UCSD Police Department to ensure enough Residential Security Officers are present to accommodate the expected influx of students.

Assistant Vice President of Programming Di Lam announced Head Automatica will perform at this quarter's Thank God It's Over concert. In her report, Lam said the last Bear Garden was a success, despite the ""foamy beer situation.""

Two more Bear Gardens are scheduled for April 13 and June 1.

Assistant Vice President Local Affairs Aida Kuzucan, shouting over noisy diners in the pub, reported that she is working with other organizations in San Diego to pass resolutions against the construction of the Foothill-South Toll Road through San Onofre State Park.

Next, Thurgood Marshall College Junior Senator Kyle Samia said he wrote a letter to the Marshall writing program, Dimensions of Culture, to disapprove of the direction in which DOC is headed.

""They responded negatively and a little abrasively,"" Samia said.

He announced that DOC administrators are going to be present at the next Marshall College Council meeting to discuss the issue. Samia advised students not to attend, although the council meeting is open to the public.

Marshall Chair Neetu Balram clarified the council's position.

""The concern is that [DOC administrators aren't] expecting such a huge turnout,"" Balram said. ""Things could get very intense and messy.""

She added that the situation could then become counter-productive.

A.S. President Chief of Staff Emma Sandoe announced that a research group of San Diego State University students will survey UCSD student leaders in the coming weeks. The group is working on a project to determine the reasons student leaders choose to take their positions.

She also announced that Revelle College senior Robby Peters was going to declare that he was entering the NBA draft. He recently became the NCAA season leader for the most three-pointers in one game.

On a final note, Khanna described a run-in he had with Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. Fox reportedly called Khanna asking for a five-seat cart, however the council only owns a two-seater.

""We let her down,"" Khanna said in his report to the council.

However, A.S. Executive Assistant Christopher Terry redeemed the council when he borrowed a five-seater for the chancellor from a college resident life office.

Asian Americans are less likely to seek out social support than their European American counterparts, according to a new study conducted by researchers from UC Santa Barbara.

According to assistant professor of psychology and study co-author Heejung S. Kim, Asian Americans do not seek support because of concerns that it affects relationships negatively. Disclosing occurrences like stressful events can make others worry, or even cause the support-seeker appear weak. In contrast, the study found that European Americans view requests for support as a proactive and beneficial method to solve problems.

""Asian Americans seem to be particularly aware and concerned about these implications and therefore are more hesitant to seek social support,"" Kim said in an e-mail.

The research found that Asian Americans still seek implicit help, spending time with family or friends without discussing problems, while still receiving some indirect support from the interactions. European Americans, on the other hand, explicitly deal with emotional issues, and are more likely to talk them over. The emphasis on collectivism in Asian cultures, Kim said, influences Asian Americans to value harmony more than individuals in Western cultures.

Kim stressed that the study's findings are not to be overgeneralized as a complete and total picture of all Asian Americans' relationships.

""Our goal is to identify behaviors that tend to vary systematically across cultures, and bring forward cultural biases that implicitly exist,"" Kim said.

Many UCSD Asian-American students said they saw the findings as representative of their experiences.

""I agree most with the idea of implicit support, that we use our social networks differently just by spending time with our families,"" Revelle College junior Malou Amparo said. ""We have different ways of coping and seeking help; maybe seeing a counselor or something isn't very appealing for some reason. It wouldn't be my first choice.""

Many students hesitate when turning to family for emotional support, some students said, and older generations expect a level of personal control.

""I almost feel as if it would be a sign of weakness if I were to not be self-dependent and be able to deal with things myself,"" Revelle College junior Kimberly Yu said. ""I don't think this was explicitly said to me ever in my life, but I've always felt that way, especially about my academics and my career. I almost don't want to fall into the stereotype, but those are the values that I've gained from my family.""

Sixth College junior Jennifer Wong said that if she were experiencing problems, she would not seek out help from a mental health professional.

""While some of my friends might go to a therapist, my first instinct would not be to go talk to someone about it,"" Wong said.

According to Kim, the study suggests that groups using the culturally appropriate support system had lower stress levels than when they used a support system that didn't match their cultural background. While many students express reservations about talking to older generations, students have an easier time connecting to peers with similar backgrounds.

According to Amparo, she finds support in Kamalayan Kollective, a Filipino organization.

""A lot of the support I feel that I need relates to my Filipino and Asian identity,"" Amparo said.

UCSD Asian Pacific Islander Student Alliance President Brian Kang also said that he finds support among his peers.

""I know that when I was first starting college, I wouldn't ask for help a lot because I didn't really feel comfortable talking to anyone, but in my experiences with APSA, it really brought that out of me,"" Kang said. ""I do try and stress that APSA is family to us. It's like a second home for a lot of the members.""

Skyrocketing health care costs and longer lines at the doctor's office are met with harried physicians more concerned with trying to meet their quota for the day than listening to health problems: This is the future of U.S. health care, according to UC health policy expert Thomas Bodenheimer.

Arash Keshmirian/Guardian
Medical school student Sasan Massachi (right), wants to pursue a career in oncology, while Kevin Burnham is undecided. Students are increasingly choosing specialized fields over primary care.

A drastic decrease in the number of primary care physicians over the past decade prompted the attention of Bodenheimer, a UC San Francisco professor of family and community medicine whose background includes not only an M.D. but also a master's degree in public health.

In a perspective piece published last month in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Bodenheimer and two other doctors blamed the income gap between specialty and primary care physicians for the decline. While the incomes of primary care physicians are by no means meager, the discrepancy in comparison to specialists has become large enough to ""discourage medical school graduates from choosing primary care careers,"" Bodenheimer wrote in the article.

The article said that the percentage of medical school graduates in the United States choosing primary care has dropped from 14 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2005, a figure that has been dwindling since the mid-1990s. Studies have indicated that patients under consistent primary care have lower health care costs, making the decline a serious situation, especially with the number of people affected by chronic diseases on the rise. The American College of Physicians has expressed a need to take action to prevent what they call an ""impending collapse"" of primary care.

At UCSD alone, the number of students choosing primary care as a career has dropped to roughly 10 percent of the graduating class over the past 20 years, according to Rusty Kallenberg, head of the division of family medicine at UCSD. Kallenberg said he believes one of the main factors fueling students' decisions to specialize is the looming debt, averaging $130,000 to $200,000, after leaving medical school.

However, patients put themselves in potential danger when they see several specialists but no primary care physician, because the specialists often lack knowledge of the patient's overall health, he said.

""[If it is] no one's job to coordinate everything, [it is] not good news for patients,"" Kallenberg said.

The Resource-Based Relative Value Scale, implemented by Medicare in 1992 with the intent of reducing the disparity costs between office visits and procedures, has become the mechanism fueling the income divide, according to Bodenheimer. Instead of paying for face time with the doctor, the difference in the relative value unit, or RVU, of a visit is based on the work that is done.

A colonoscopy costs more than a normal office visit because the intensity of the work - mitigated by factors of skill, effort, judgment and stress - is seen as greater for p rocedures, as opposed to doctors' cognitive efforts. Over the years, the volume of procedures performed by specialists has increased more rapidly than office visits, contributing to the higher salaries of specialists.

In addition, several studies have shown that private insurers favor specialist procedures over primary care. A 2002 study revealed that, on average, private insurers pay 120 percent of Medicare's fee for procedures over 104 percent for office visits, allowing specialists to negotiate higher rates than primary care physicians.

Bodenheimer's report also highlighted the somewhat biased process of updating RVU values. The American Medical Association and other specialist societies created the Relative Value Scale Update Committee, which is designed to recommend RVU updates every five years. Of the 29 members of the committee, 23 are from specialist societies, and only 15 percent of the voting members represent primary care.

The paper alleges that specialist-heavy membership, along with specialist society influence in the committee, has led to the avoidance of increasing evaluation and management RVUs - the meat and potatoes of primary care physician income.

Revelle College junior Matt Wiepking is one of many premed students on campus. Originally, Wiepking had his sights set on being a general practitioner or pediatrician, but has since been considering specialist fields like radiology.

""There is obviously a financial factor, but a lot of it is lifestyle, patients and decisions you get to make,"" Weipking said.

He said he believes that more than the money, students may be more interested in the immediate, tangible benefits from specialty fields. In being able to see a change in the patient's condition, Weipking said students may feel more useful.

After watching doctors and spending many volunteer hours in hospitals, Weipking said he does not necessarily agree with current method of charging patients.

""I think there is a definite lean on doing the tests, but that stems from fear of malpractice,"" Weipking said. ""A lot of unnecessary procedures done [are] not a good way to practice medicine. [It's] not helping patients.""

Bodenheimer suggested in his report that experts seek out alternate payment models that work to suit each area's approach to treating patients. In the short term, he recommended that Medicare and private insurers identify ways to modify their reimbursement approaches while primary care tries to bolster its ranks.

""Do we need surgeons if you get hit by a bus?"" Kallenberg said. ""Of course, but we also need vibrant primary care to prevent disease from unhelpful behavior.""

The level of narcissism and self-entitlement has reached an all-time high in Generation Y college students, according to a recent study conducted by five nationwide university researchers.

The study was the largest of its type ever conducted, and was spearheaded by Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the author of a leading book on narcissism in young people.

""Far from being civically oriented, young people born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation in recent history,"" Twenge said in a press release.

The study asked its subjects for yes or no responses to statements such as, ""If I ruled the world, it would be a better place"" and ""I think I am a special person."" The responses were alarming, the authors said. Two-thirds of all subjects answered ""yes"" to over half the statements, which is 30 percent more than when the test was first introduced in 1982.

""Narcissism feels good and might be useful for meeting new people or auditioning on 'American Idol,'"" said W. Keith Campbell, co-author of the study and a psychology professor at the University of Georgia. ""Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others.""

Campbell's arguments are supported explicitly in the study, which states that narcissists ""are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty and over-controlling and violent behaviors.""

The question now is, can anything be done to stem the self-centered tendencies of today's students? As far as Twenge is concerned, possible tactics include sterner parenting.

""We need to stop endlessly repeating, 'You're special' and having children repeat that back,"" Twenge said. ""Plus, current technology fuels the increase in narcissism.""

Campbell, however, suggested that the study's results may show that a simple solution is impossible.

""Permissiveness seems to be a component,"" he said. ""A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting.""

UCSD students had mixed reactions about the findings of the study.

""I've noticed that students tend to refuse to accept responsibility for doing poorly in class, as if they think it's not possible that they themselves are to blame for a bad grade,"" Revelle College sophomore Elizabeth McDevitt said.

But Eleanor Roosevelt College sophomore Virginia Cheng disagreed.

""Students today seem to have more of a grasp today on worldly events and issues that don't pertain to them personally,"" she said. ""We seem to care more about everyone else.""