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You land at the bottom of the hole and find yourself in a large room with a single door. You walk to the door and reach for the doorknob. To your surprise, the doorknob comes alive and begins to speak.

 

"Oh dear. This doesn't look good. I'm terribly sorry, but it seems that you've developed cancer. It can't be helped, I'm afraid. It's terminal," cries the doorknob.

 

He continues, "It is common for many cancer patients to experience a high degree of emotional suffering, and the highest prevalence of psychological distress occurs in advanced stage and end-of-life patients. 50% of cancer patients have psychiatric disorders and 24% have any depressive or anxiety disorder. The prevalence of suicide in advanced and end-stage cancer is twice as high as that found in the general population." (Grob, C. S., Bossis, A. P., & Griffiths, R. R.)

Noticing a look of distress on your face, he adds, "There should be pills in the box to help your anxiety and depression. These are the best options that medicine has to offer currently."

 

You look up to see that a box has appeared in front of you. In the box, you find a variety of pills each bearing either the letters SSRI or SNRI.

 

The Bottom of the Hole

Choose one of the pills below.

© 2015 SocGen 108: Francesca Essilfie, Monica Morucci, Pardes Seleh, and Sam Wang. This website was created by undergrad students in UCLA's Human Biology and Society Major, as part of a capstone course requirement.  Questions or comments can be directed to the Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA (socgen@socgen.ucla.eduProudly created with Wix.com

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