Friday, July 04, 2003

Wisdom


What Kanji word best suits you?
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~me~ at 11:12 PM

Well, it rained hard and the pool looks gross again. For some reason, Joe decided he wanted to try and vaccuum the bottom of the pool. So we tried to get it set up. It was pretty funny watching the whole thing as we all tried to figure out how to get the thing to work. It still looks gross but oh well, we tried.
My cousin Pam wrote to me. She has cochlear implants so I get to learn a bit about those from her experience. I find it helpful to get the patient point of view of things since the textbooks are so dry and often have tons of words yet don't seem to convey much information that sticks in my brain. I guess I'm more of a hands on type person. well, Monday is the big day so I'll let you know how that goes. We have procedure cards to fill out as we see or do certain things. I feel sorry for the person who has to be the first victim of my attempt to put stitches in. i still can't figure out how to hold the needle driver or how to put the needle in the damn needle driver. I do know the needle needs to point to the left since I'm right handed but I'm not sure if the needle, which is curved, should point up or down. I'm fine with tying though. I just need to practice. And apparently one can buy needle drivers and other surgical supplies at the french market in the quarter. At least, Dr. Theis said that's where he bought the supplies we used in the suture clinic he held for us! I just need to ask my preceptor if I can have some sutures to practice on chicken skin. Of course since I buy skinless chicken, I need to but a thigh with skin on it for suture practicing. Ooh and he also taught us how to do core biopsies for skin lesions. Pretty easy...especially since you don't stitch up circular stuff.
I'm thinking of getting a new palm pilot, the Zire 71. My handspring is limited in what I can get for it in terms of modules. The only thing I can get that is really cheap is the washington manual for $12 compared to the $90 it would cost if I got the Zire. Problem is that I don't need the camera the zire has but want the color screen and the expandibility. The m515 costs the same but has a lower resolution screen and seems to be shoddy when you read reviews by customers. Oh and I also prefer the calculator on the handspring but since I rarely use it anyway, that doesn't matter much. I think I'll watch the prices. The regular Zire now retails around $70 at some places but was introduced at $100. The lowest I've seen the Zire 71 for is about $270 so maybe with time palm will drop the price (or resellers will) or they will introduce a color screen Zire without a camera. The one benefit I see with a camera is to take pictures of patients with cool pathology to show my resident on rounds. It doesn't take great pictures in terms of being able to print them but good enough for what little I would be using it for. See, now you can see why I hope they introduce a color zire without a camera...I have no need for it and most people don't need it either. They could sell that one for $200. I wish I were more influential in that sense. I'm still trying to get my hands on a pirated copy of 5 minute consult. That also costs about $90.
~me~ at 9:15 PM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Today was a reminder as to why I stopped going to lecture last year. Sitting in a chair for so many hours without getting to use the bathroom at will (without interrupting the speaker at least) is more than I can handle. But other than that, it was pretty fun today. We got all the stuff we need to do over the next 8 weeks and had a bunch of lectures and then suture clinic. The worst of the worst in the nation is in this state (or mississippi). Only 10 of the 64 parishes are not Health Provider shortage areas (HPSA). Sad. Oh and then we had a lecture on geriatric medicine with freebie books (and we're the only group that gets them since the school was only sent a limited number of those). There was a case of a 75 year old man who had bits of dementia, delirium, and depression (the 3 big Ds of old age) and with the exception of a few things, the guy sounded sadly a lot like gramps since Grandma died last year. Then we had lunch. While the family med kids (that would be us) are all dressed in shorts and t-shirts, 5/6s of the class is all dressed up and some have already seen patients! They look at us and know immediately that we're the family med kids - we laugh at them now but they'll have their turn later in the year to laugh at us when we're in the other blocks. After lunch we had a talk on upper respiratory infections and the fact that most infections are self limited and don't need antibiotics. The only one that really needs to be treated aggressively is Group A Strep Throat and it's not so much for the strep throat but to prevent Rheumatic Fever which is more morbid (aka damaging) than the strep throat itself. Unless you have a weak immune system or are otherwise have compromised health, your body can fight off the infection in the same time that it would take if you did buy the antibiotics. All you really need is tylenol or Motrin for fevers and the aches, rest, and fluids. So Chicken Soup is really all you need afterall. And in kids, there's more morbidity and mortality (death) when infections such as ear infections are treated with antibiotics than when they are just treated with Motrin for the fevers and pain because of the side effects of the antibiotics. And the Motrin relieves the pain faster than the antibiotics! And in studies where they limited antibiotic use, the resistant bugs are lost and infections are now being caused primarily by the weak immune susceptible bugs. And well, tylenol is cheaper than many antibiotics. So the next time you get sick, try using these simple remedies for 2 weeks (the usual time course for self-limited infections to clear is about 10 days) and if then it's still bad or got worse quickly, go complain to your doctor cause I can't write scrips.
~me~ at 8:05 PM

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Well, I'm meeting up with Erinn and Mick in an hour for dinner in the quarter. The weather has been absolutely fabulous today! (knock on wood) I picked up my contacts and exchanged something at Bath and Body Works. I pinched my finger on my ironing board so now my finger kind of hurts. My feet hurt from wearing fancy shoes. Damn, this professional life is hazardous to my health! Oh and I got my pager all set up. There's supposed to be codes but they must have changed since they don't work. Well, I'm going to check my mail.
~me~ at 5:44 PM

Why do people feel the need to piss me off when I'm the happiest? Today the new manager of the school bookstore has made it to my shitlist. I bought my textbooks and didn't think much of the price until my 2 classmates who bought the exact same book 2 hours before me told me they only paid $44.95 while I paid $51.40. So I took his book and receipt with me to the bookstore to get my $6.45 credit since clearly it is a matter of usual good business practices to credit when such an error is made in price somewhere. So he claims that the price was incorrect. I'm still holding to my belief that I still deserve the credit. Then he says that he called the publisher and was told the price was increased. That's where he made his fatal error. I didn't realize his mistake until I got home and did a little research. But at that moment, we realized that the battle had been lost because this man with a stick up his ass wasn't budging and wasn't being polite at all throughout the ordeal. I then pointed out that it is usual good business practices to credit mistakes like this but he then says no again. So I say, so basically you don't plan on running a good business but prefer instead to cheat customers. Then his reply is that he only sells things at what the publisher tells him to do (again, wrong thing to say). So I come home and check barnes and noble.com. Hmmm. interesting, they have the list price (or what the publisher would "make" a person sell a book for) as $44.95. I check Amazon.com. Again, $44.95 is the list price. So then I check the publisher themselves, lww.com. And lo and behold, they're selling it at $44.95. In the past 2 years, they have always sold their books on their site at their list price they give to resellers. The ass in the bookstore lied and told the wrong lie to the wrong person. So of course I sent an email to my group to tell them the price diff and they can use the info as they wish. Sure, they'll think I'm crazy and obsessed but if this is a new trend at the bookstore, I guess I'll only be buying what little variety in clothes they sell there. Why do people seek out my fury?
~me~ at 4:00 PM

Monday, June 30, 2003

Nothing motivates me to do really well this year than tropical storms. Yes, I hate them. The rain is better because there's no thunder and lightning but I don't like it anyway. I really hate the wind. So why is this motivational? Because if I can help it, I don't want to do residency in any hurricane/tropical storm or tornado area. While it was fun earlier today, it's really windy now. It appears that the center of the storm is just at the edge of where I'm at. These national weather "experts" don't seem to be accurately predicting storm paths since they were wrong for Isidore and Lili last year and were wrong for Bill. Okay, not drastically wrong and they can't exactly know for sure how the winds will blow the storm but still...Well, I hope tomorrow is nice since I want to hang out a bit with Erinn, Mick, Evan, and possibly Kelly after school. I bet they're so glad to be here away from the sunshine and heat in portland...yeah right! Well, I wonder if the teachers still went on their drinking tour of the quarter...
~me~ at 5:47 PM

Sunday, June 29, 2003

And so begins another Hurricane Season... Tropical Storm Bill is coming tomorrow night but the rains have already begun. I don't think there has been a single day this month that is hasn't rained. I can't say for sure since I was gone for a few days in Vegas but this has been a very very wet month compared to last year. And if we're already getting storms, I'm afraid for this season. Only 4-5 more months left of hurricane season...that's only slightly half of 3rd year! Cripes! Oh...
~me~ at 5:23 PM