Hurricane Jill

Preparation isn’t panic

Here’s my obligatory post on “swine” flu.

1. There are currently 90 or so confirmed cases in the U.S. and one death as of this morning.
2. There are probably many more cases of the regular seasonal flu out there right this minute, with numerically far more deaths occurring from that cause.
3. At the current rate of transmission, it will be at least another 10 days, and probably longer, before swine flu becomes a widespread public health issue.
4. Very likely the rate of transmission will drop off, due to the currently recommended public health measures such as staying home with a single caregiver if you’re ill, environmental decontamination, canceling school and school events in the event of a cluster of cases, and diligent handwashing.
5. Three isolated cases of swine flu had been identified earlier in this year’s flu season, in Iowa, Texas and North Dakota, with no documented human-to-human transmission.
6. The normal death rate from flu is 0.1%.
7. The death rate among confirmed cases of swine flu is 4% worldwide, 1% in the U.S.
8. The one U.S. death was a toddler with underlying health issues brought here from Mexico.

So while there’s certainly cause to be prepared for a pandemic, it has certainly not become one thus far, and with the public health measures noted above, may never do so. And those public health measures are things everyone can do.

Ad absurdum

Followed a link this morning, and found a whole host of new blogs and interesting topics. Chief among them, this one, with a post about nepotism. This is a topic near and dear to me, not least because 4 out of 5 of my summer/after school jobs throughout high school and early college were a direct result of it. Continue Reading Ad absurdum…

Hilarious!

I get to post this, because I’m from Texas.

Oooooo, does that make me a douchebag? I hope so. I’ve got a long list of people I’d love to give a piece of my mind.

Regrets

Well, I have an interesting problem on my hands at the moment. My training license application asks if my medical education or training was extended for any reason. I could truthfully answer no, except that the piece of fiction that is my MSPE says that it was. And my transcript says I repeated OB/GYN.

But neither of those things are true. And I’d just as soon tell the truth, since that’s easier to remember from one telling to the next and, conveniently, is also internally consistent, even-handed in its portrayal of the major players, and believable with respect to what we all know of human nature. As the truth tends to be.

But the committee never heard the whole story, because the Dean cut me off in the middle of it, at a point where I knew there were still too many unanswered questions for them to make the right decision.

I hate that I’m in this position now. Seriously, if I had it do over again, I would have refused to let myself be pressured into what I knew, even then, was an expedient but wrong and unjust solution. And quit medical school rather than accept anything less than a decision fully endorsing my explanation of events.

I’d certainly be no worse off at this point.

Sun-atics

It’s been sunny here in Seattle, which means no one here is working, if they can at all avoid it. And those who can’t get out of work entirely are all scheming how to leave an hour or two early. Up at the hospital, there will be at least one team having an afternoon running-of-the-list out in the courtyard. Probably one of the surgical services, since all the medicine teams will probably have gotten the hell out of the hospital already.

Seriously, this town goes sun-crazy every spring. Everything comes second, on a sunny day here, to spending time outdoors. In the south, sunny days are also usually intolerably hot and humid, and people start wearing coats as soon as the temperature falls below 70. Sunlight is everywhere all year, and in summer, relief from the heat is the priority. So when I first moved here, in May of the year before I started med school, it seemed both bizarre and hilarious how frantically people would try to get their work done on a sunny day, just so they could leave an hour earlier. People would be talking about how hot it was outside, while I was still shivering in long sleeves.

A year later, it was a different story entirely. Over 45 degrees, I don’t need a coat. When it hit 55 degrees, I broke out the short sleeves. 65-75 was perfect, and at 85 I was uncomfortably hot.

Then I went to New Orleans, Houston’s batty but endearing old great-aunt with exactly the same weather genes. Back to the heat and humidity. Which wasn’t nearly the shock that its culture was, since I’d lived in Houston most of my life. Because of the humidity, the heat feels hotter, and the cold feels colder. August, September and October are unbearable, as are February and the first half of March. The rain comes in afternoon torrents, so heavy you can’t see the tail lights of a car more than a car-length or two ahead of you, and then is gone. Even so, New Orleans weather is actually more extreme than Houston’s.

So it was actually nice to move back to Seattle, where the rain is monotonous but not dangerous, and the city is well-maintained and the environment aesthetically pleasing. The snow this year was a bonus, not to mention that it was very entertaining–as long as you didn’t have to drive in it with all the Seattle snow n00bs (myself included).

Well, it’s a sunny day today, so I’ll have to wrap this up now and get outside while there are still some rays to worship.

Brief hiatus

Please pardon the brief lack of posting. Things got interesting all of a sudden, and everything I write seems a bit unfit for posting right now. I promise to back at it regularly when I have something more definite to write about.

99 cent fix

It truly sucks to work in 4 different pharmacies in one week. All of them requiring 30-90 minutes of travel time each way. There are some updates due, but you’ll have to stay tuned for this weekend.

On a side note, how in the world did I live for so long without an iPhone?