Patients vs. patience

The other day I was reading Richel's blog and happened to read this one long entry about me. She wrote about how I never complained about work and that I enjoy doing what I do. My first thought was, are you nuts? I gripe and complain CONSTANTLY about work, almost to the point that I'm getting sick of myself. I sat and contemplated this statement and realized that Richel was actually correct, from a certain point of view.

When it comes to seeing patients and treating them, I don't complain. Well, not much. However, I do complain constantly about all the other things that go on at work; the ancillary staff, the patients' families, and most of all, other doctors. Kind of a weird twist on things, wouldn't you say? I could give numerous examples of encounters that would turn anyone's hair gray, but I'll just give my favorite one for now:

I was paged at 2am or so by a nurse who told me that a patient's heart rate had dropped to 30 beats/minute.

"How long did this last?" I asked, becoming wide awake, immediately.

"Oh, about 5-8 seconds," she replied.

"Thank you," I said, politely. I hung up the phone and went back to sleep. This sort of thing drives me insane. But that's okay, because maybe she was new or didn't know any better. What's 10 times worse is when another doctor does something like that.

What happened to the good old days when doctors were gods and could yell at anyone as they pleased, including each other? Those days are long gone.

Me, I just take it in the chops. Still irritating like you wouldn't believe.

Another day, another year older...

Well, I celebrated my birthday almost a week ago bringing me to the ripe old age of 32. I didn't do much; Richel took me out for lunch and then I went home and studied stroke and brain injury. Not the most exciting birthday I've had, but oh well.

Not at all like last year. On my 31st b-day, I went out with all of my friends and co-residents to Cucino Paradisio in Oak Park, one of my favorite places. We all had a good time. But alas, with the coming of my 4th year of residency came an onslaught of politics and petty jealousy among my coworkers whom I thought were also my close friends (apparently, I was very, very wrong). Needless to say, the dynamics of our whole group irreparably changed from a cohesive class to one that was riddled with bitterness. What happened? It's a long story and a sad one considering the outcome.
I knew the birthday I had celebrated last year would be nothing like this year's.

Maybe that's for the best, though because now I know who my real friends are. I did spend part of my birthday thinking about this, and thinking about the people who supported me and stayed with me through the tough times and those who turned their backs on me, pointed fingers, and caused nothing but trouble. And I was thankful for my true friends, the ones who have stayed with me through thick and thin, the ones who even called me up and wished me a happy birthday.

So, in essence my birthday wasn't so bad at all. Realizing that I did have a core of loyal friends, and spending time with my lady is all that anyone could ask for. If I could spend it with my family, that would have been icing on the cake.

Body Worlds

Two days ago, Richel, Krishna, and I went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for a "field trip." Okay, so it was the middle of the week in the afternoon, and at that time most people, especially doctors and residents, are working. But hey, can we be faulted if nothing was on the attendings' schedule? So off Krishna and I went, dragging along poor Richel who was feeling sick that day.

That entire museum is pretty cool to start with. Super high ceilings with antique planes hanging in the air. There's even this passenger airliner minus the wings, there, too. They also have this gargantuan steam train.

But I digress. The reason we were there was to see dead people preserved with a technique called plastination. The lines were reminiscent of a summer day at Disneyland for one of the rides; long and winding and with a million people between you and the ticket counter. Where did all these people come from? Weren't they supposed to be working?

Anyway, the exhibit was very interesting. True, it was nothing new to any of us, being that we had all taken gross anatomy class at one time in our lives and have spent more hours dissecting and studying cadaveres than we care to remember.

Seeing the bodies themselves wasn't the amazing thing, though. What was amazing was the perfection of the dissections! These dissections were almost perfect. Better than Ronin and Yokoshi's....well, almost. There was one exhibit where it looks like they accidentally cut the left common peroneal nerve. And that was disappointing. But other than that, the dissections looked perfect! No fatty tissue or fascia was left on any of these cadavers. NONE! There were even some exhibits where it showed only the vasculature and nothing else. It was so perfect, it almost looked fake. Like someone had taken some cotton out and stretched it in to the form of a person and solidified it, or something. It was amazing.

But seeing disection after disection gets kind of boring after a while. Then we went in to the next room where they had these huge exhibits. It was quite creative how the bodies were disected and stretched out to make them appear larger than they really were. They even had one of a pregnant woman and a fetus inside. Again, all perfectly disected and intact. The most amazing exhibit of all was the cavalryman. Yes, they dissected out a whole dude and an entire freakin' horse! That was absolutely incredible to see. Again, not that it was so graphic, but to appreciate how long and how hard someone must have worked on that to make it so clean and perfect.

For anyone who has done dissections in anatomy lab, just to give an example, it took us about 3-4 hours just to dissect out one hand. And that's 3-4 people working together and doing a pretty crappy job of it, too. Imagine how long it must have taken someone to do a perfect job! That's the amazing part of the whole exhibit; not actually seeing the bodies and stuff.

Seeing the exhibit inspired me to go to the Rush gross anatomy lab and start doing dissections with the cadavers in different poses.

Anyway, after we checked out the Body Worlds exhibit, we saw one display/creation/whatever you want to call it that would make any kid flip out. It was a miniature model set of the city of downtown Chicago! Complete with the Sear's Tower and that funky diamond shaped building, and even the Loop! To add to that, they had moving trains running on the Loop that ran off in to the countryside and under a large mountain range to emerge in....the middle of downtown Seattle? Is a trip to Seattle THAT easy?

Shoot, I would have done that ages ago had I known. But the downtown Seattle area with the mountain range in the background was absolutely beautiful. Time well spent there; I'll miss that for sure in Indianna.

Can't Wait to Move Outta Here

So the other day, my niece asked me why I don't update my blog more often. And I told her that I have to find something interesting to write, otherwise it would be a really boring blog to read. Not like this is some sort of work by Dan Brown, now. But at least it can hold the attention of 1 twelve year old out there.

But I digress. As the months drag on, the moment of truth and graduation draw near. Thank the Lord! As my apartment has slowly become worse and worse. Don't get me wrong, the property manager is awesome; he's fixed up the place like never before. It's the tenants who are becoming worse and worse. Or is it just me who's becoming older and older and crankier in my old age? I don't know, I'll let you decide.

When I first moved in 3 years ago, the biggest complaint in my apartment was the rancid odor in the hallway. It smelled like really bad B.O. Not a big deal, because all I had to do was run from the elevator to my front door and the close the door after I got in. These days, it's a totally different story. An older couple moved in upstairs, and apparently like to hold parties on the weekends with their 50 family members up there. Needless to say it feels like an earthquake down below in my apartment. But it doesn't end there. There's always someone smoking, too! And for those who know me, smelling someone's second hand smoke is my biggest pet-peeve. That really drives me absolutely nuts.

In the morning, I walk down through the stair well to get to my car, and aparently, this stupid-looking dude with long hair likes to smoke in the stair well without his shirt on. Which is fine, but he treats the stair well like his own personal ashtray. So when I go through there in the morning, it's full of ash and cigarette butts. I really hope he dies of lung cancer soon. And to add to that, some moron in my building smokes marijuana and leaves their window open for all others to enjoy the foul stench. I really can't wait to move out of this apartment.