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City of Dallas tested on civics: fails overwhelmingly.

May 11, 2011 by

If you needed to find an example of government action designed to make citizenry cynical and disillusioned look no further than this story, from WFAA:

DALLAS — Dallas will keep $2,000 found by a teenager in a parking lot last February.

The money will go into the city’s general fund — not back to Plano high school student Ashley Donaldson, who found the cash in an envelope at the Pavillion Shopping Center in North Dallas.

(The video.)

This after being told she’d get it if nobody claimed it. I found this story on Hot Air, who described it as wall-punching material. They were correct.

So, how much is $2,000 to the city of Dallas? (Hint, their 2010-11 budget is $2,795,393,655 (it’s in the 2011 .pdf file) Two Billion with a B.) 2000/2795393655=  7.15×10-7, or, 0.000000715%

So, you can see they need the money. Certainly means more to the City of Dallas than a 15 year old girl.


Filed Under: Current Affairs

My first medical checklist

May 11, 2011 by

Laugh if you want, this helps my life, at least at work.

For months after starting my current gig, I would sometimes get to work with everything in all my pockets, and sometimes not.

I’d forget my ID, or my pen, or my phone, or my…well, there you go.

Then my OCD started to kick in, and, a Mental Checklist was born.
I now have to get 6 things, and set them on the table or I screw it up every time.

  • ID
  • stethoscope
  • my phone
  • work phone
  • pen
  • sharp stick (I’ve written about this before, but cannot find it. You should search an ER blog for the word ‘knife’ and then wonder why you bothered).

Last week I apparently went against the checklist, and halfway through the shift realized I’d lost my ID. Of course, after about a combined half-hour of fruitless search I gave up, and found it in my bag on the way out. Geez.

Yeah, it sounds stupid. But if it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.

 

 


Filed Under: Amusements, Emergency, Medical

Employment rocks

May 11, 2011 by

It’s a bad economy and a poor employment situation, especially for lawyers. It has been for a couple of years, but for my son the drought has broken, at least temporarily. A job! In law! And in Fort Worth.

The job does not pay a ton of money, and since law firms aren’t stupid it’s for a ‘trial period’ (pardon the pun), but it’ll get him some experience, some income, and get him some contacts in their world. So, winning!

Kudos to Bob!


Filed Under: Family

Medical Apps? There’s a Doc for That

May 11, 2011 by

When emergency physician Harvey Castro asked a nurse to start a dopamine dose for a hypotensive patient one day, he watched the nurse leave the room, find the book that could guide her to the titratable dose, look in the index and then flip through until she found what she needed. Castro wondered, Isn’t there a more efficient way?

via Medical Apps? There’s a Doc for That.

A fellow DFW doc who’s done well in the Medical App world ( Deep Pocket Series ).

Dr. Castro was nice enough to let me play with some of his apps about a year ago, and while I never found a big use for them (my practice style, no knock on him) they were well done and approachable for me.

Kudos to Dr. Castro!


Filed Under: Emergency, Web/Tech