Archive for the 'Amusements' Category

Man Faked Heart Attack to Avoid Bill? - TIME
(AP / WAUKESHA, Wisconsin) — A 52-year-old Milwaukee-area man has been accused of faking heart attacks to avoid paying restaurant bills and cab fares.

People never cease to amaze me.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Los Angeles Times: UCLA Medical Center preps for its biggest operation: moving day

June 25, 2008

On Sunday, 2,100 doctors, nurses, technicians and managers at UCLA Medical Center will participate in a task of epic proportions: moving to the gleaming new hospital across the street.

Although the distance is short, the details are daunting. The shift to the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center will require military-style precision. Using 30 ambulances and 80 gurneys, three teams of professionals will transfer 350 patients — many of them hooked up to monitors and respirators — at the rate of one every two minutes.

How cool; that’s a story they’ll all remember for their entire lives.  It’s not often a hospital just picks up and moves.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Alerted by Kevin, MD today, I find that Dr. Schwab (Surgeonsblog) has decided to label ER Blogs, and bloggers as mindlessly conservative, and apparently unenlightened.  (Oh, plenty of disclaimers are sprinkled throughout, so you know he’s not actually talking about anyone, just everyone).

First thoughts: somewhwere Shadwofax has his lower lip stuck out just a bit, and this might be what made Graham pack it in.

So.  Fisking is what I seem to do best in these situations, so I shall.

… And yet. Reading some ER blogs — not all, and by no means all the time — I find the vitriol off-putting. The derision. And the take-no-prisoners attitude — the downright hatred, so it often seems — toward “liberals,” suffused throughout. (Not to mention a similar attitude, quite often, toward their own clientele). I love political give-and-take; most of my work-colleagues politicked far to my right, yet we had enlightening and stimulating, good-hearted arguments. But reading some ER blogs, unlike any other category in the healthosphere, is like listening to Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. It’s a polemicist’s playground.

Well, that’s rich.  I so tired of the lockstep leftist blather on Dr. Schwabs’ blog I eventually just stopped reading it.  A polemicists’ playground?  Read the sentence preceding that one, and see if you can find the disconnect.

In case you’re ever wondering if a blog writer is a fevered leftist, just wait for the following to appear in a blog post:

I’ve had my moments of moral muttering, liberally laced with haughty holiness. I consider George Bush the worst president we’ve ever had (and no, Mr. Bush, history will not vindicate you). But I’ve never called him “a bucket of spit.”

It’ll show up, appropos of nothing whatsoever.  They think it’s normal to interject their BDS into everyday life and any blog post.  Really.  It’s astonishing.

Nor do I kiss off all conservatives as some sort of existential threat. (Some, of course. But not the whole group.) Physicians are, in general, a conservative bunch. But they’re also educated; enough, you’d think, to have left their minds at least slightly ajar.

I have an open mind, but to paraphrase, not so open that my brains fell out.  I am reasonably well educated, I take my time making decisions when I have the time, and have come to the conclusion that the government isn’t the answer to every problem.  My personal politics skew more libertarian, but here’s the thing: NOBODY CARES what I think politically.  That’s why, excepting politics about medicine, I leave it out.

His ending:

Maybe it’s an inevitable corollary: working in an ER turns people. Another possibility: people who lean loudest to the right are the ones who choose the job in the first place. Or perhaps (with a couple of exceptions) it’s just that the rightward ER docs blog, and the leftward ones go home and tie-dye.

Get it?  If you’re conservative, you’re “turned”.  Perhaps some introspection and insight are needed on the part of the blogger.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Good news: my neighbors now have one fewer skunk.
Bad news: his demise came under my new car (he zigged, I zagged to miss: didn’t work out well).

The dilemma: will my car get salmonella with tomato juice?

Update: no chemicals necessary; the heat under the car dissipated the odor after about 3 days.

Popularity: 16% [?]

CNN has used this graphic before, and though it bugged me, I let it go.  Since I have a blog and nothing to say, I’ll point it out so it’ll bug you, too.

This graphc:

The EKG tracing in the photo is backward (meaning it reads incorrectly from left to right, which is the convention).  There’s nothing particularly interesting about it, but it’s backward, and it gets my (unpleasant) attention every time.

So, CNN, I’ll be glad to review your medical graphics, for an entirely reasonable fee. Or get someone else to do it, but please do so.

Popularity: 18% [?]

As a nice change from the spams I get concerned about my, well, male enhancement, I got this astonishingly stupid one today:

Dear Sir,
This is to inform you that your ATM CARD has been credited with your fund
and it is ready for use. You are required to provide the ATM department with
your information such as:
FULL NAME:…………………….
ADDRESS:………………….

……
PHONE NUMBER:…………….
NOTE; There is a delivery fee of $185 before we shall dispatch the Atm to
you by courier, please take note before forwarding your information.
Please contact the ATM department on this email {removed to protect the identity of the stupid} for
the release of your ATM CARD immediately.
Congratulations.
Regards,
Dr. Stupid,
The Director of ATM Department Zenith International Bank Plc

Popularity: 13% [?]

Popularity: 13% [?]

I am taking a class on coaching this weekend. So far I’ve learned that I’m most comfortable in a child ego state. I wonder if that’s why I like toys so much…

Popularity: 11% [?]

Today, on the way home, I was listening to the radio, absentmindedly listening to the latest “Magic Pill” ad, when this snapped me out of my reverie:

“(Magic Pill) is not a medication, so be sure to consult your doctor before taking it”.

That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year, and I listened to some of the presidential primary debates. Really? It’s not a medicine, something a doctor should know about, it’s a non-medicine, so consult a physician (expert in medicine and medicines) before you take their idiotic magic pill.

Be sure and ask your doc about synthetic oils and pleated air filters while you’re at it.

Geez.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I teased this recently, and said I’d tell the tale. I have told it several times in my life, and still feel stupid while doing so, but maybe if I tell it here I’ll keep someone from doing themselves in. It can be a cautionary tale for others, and it’s a mystery to me why I wasn’t taken to meet my maker that night.

It’s 1988 or so, I’m getting a Masters’ degree (because getting a real job is too stultifying, and school I’m good at). My degree is in Life Science (biology) but my meager student income flows from being a paid lab rat for the Organic Chem department. (Those with significant O-chem experience are already cringing: keep reading, it’s worse than you think). The Professor I worked for was developing a new synthesis of a known structure, and my job was to make it happen. I was not the brains of this operation.

I was, however, the guy who was reasonably good with bench chemistry (in the day, I’d be lost now) and could be trusted to follow instructions and get to get a multi-step process right, over and over. As I’d been doing this for about a year, I was both trusted in the lab and overconfident in my abilities. (For fun, keep track of the safety lapses that follow).

Friday night, alone in the lab; I’ve gotten comfortable using ether as my solvent for this operation and it’s about 8:30 PM in a completely abandoned lab on the 4th (top) floor of a very empty building. The research lab is a room in the back: 8 feet wide, 12 feet long, with a door on one end, a hood on the other end, and a sink on the counter that runs from one end to the other on one side. The hood never turns off (and it’s good to have it on for ventilation in the little room anyway), the sink is important because it’s the source of suction for my major colleague in chemistry, above it being 2.5 gallon carboys of deionized water and acetone (both used to clean glassware). The shelves over the bench are covered with the typical assortment of obscure reagents, there’s paper stacked neatly on the bench. Oh, and there’s a Farrah poster on the back wall held up with black string from the drop-ceiling metal. It’s not mine, but it makes for something more fun to look at than brown gooey chemicals.

The sink suction was necessary to help my Rotovap work (have a look; it’s astonishingly ingenious) and is light-years better than the standard O-chem distillers. It can do in minutes what would take an hour in a regular, non-suction distilled evaporator, which is why I used it. Running water across a venturi makes a nice vacuum, the whole reagent end of the business spins, the diluent comes off like a shot, what’s not to like?

I’d discovered ether came off very quickly, unless it came off so quickly the reagent vessel started to frost over, then it finished very slowly. Being a problem solver the answer was easy: heat it (gently) with a shallow vessel of water on a hot plate.

That was what I was doing, standing rather dumbly in front of a rotovap doing its thing, wishing it would hurry up, when the ground glass joint holding my experiment to the machine popped off. Reagent and ether diluent bubbling into the hot water, I started to curse, seeing 8 hours of work being hydrolyzed.

That’s when the hot plate clicked on and the room instantly burst into flame. The entire countertop from door to hood was a fireball, to the ceiling, and over the top. I sensed more than recognized the fire was rolling over my head; the heat flash was impressive, and not really appreciated until later. Heat, light, and a flight reflex I’ve never had before or since: this is hard-wired, required no input from me, and maybe saved my life.

I ran. I ran faster than I have before or since. Carl Lewis could not have caught me for the next 200 feet, running through the hall to the stairs at the end. Some rationality returned at the doors, and I thought, then said aloud to no one, “I just set the lab on fire”, my legs carrying me back to the scene of my crime against chemistry and safety.

Fire extinguishers are ubiquitous in chem labs, so I got one reflexively on my way to the little room where I’d nearly bought it, but was much more worried about burning the building down at the time. There was a fire in the water under the rotovap, and one short shot of the extinguisher put it out nicely. The paper on the end of the counter was aflame, and the fire extinguisher shot made them into a thousand burning embers flying through the air independently. Phoo.

I’d started to tremble a bit, and realized I should get help, just in case. I walked out to our dedicated hotline to the security department, picked it up and declared the following: “I’m GruntDoc, I’ve just had an explosion and fire in the chemistry lab. The fire is out but I think I need some help”, and hung up. (I found out later I scared years off the dispatcher, who called the University Policeman on duty).

The University Officer I’d been a Boy Scout with, and he said when he got up the stairs my hair was still smoldering. That’s when I took stock, and found that, indeed, the hair on the top of my head had been pretty well singed, but no other injuries. We looked around a bit, decided the building wouldn’t burn down tonight, and he left me to clean up.

While rectifying my mistake I found the following: little burned pieces of filter paper are harder to clean up than you’d think, the rotovap knob was fused to the machine body, the plumbing insulation overhead was burned, and Farrah’s strings had burned through, dumping her unceremoniously onto the floor. Then I looked at the 2.5 gallons of Acetone, and wondered why it hadn’t ignited. If it had, in that confined space, I would have been horribly burned at best, most likely I’d have been killed.

I really think there was a divine intervention for me that night. I wonder why: is there a Big Moment for me someday, or was it just pity for being so stupid all at once? I’ll never know for sure. I hope.

That many safety errors are a firing offense, so I expected at least that, and maybe to expelled on Monday when the Prof got back. I went in prepared for the worst, and got the following: ‘Did you learn something?’ Yes. ‘Still want to work?’. Yes. ‘Okay.’ I finished the project, the degree, and went on to bigger and better things.

I hope I wasn’t spared just to blog. That’d be silly.

Update:

Popularity: 24% [?]

Dr. Leap is getting even more famous!

The humor behind health care reform - This doctor’s tongue-in-cheek rallying cry is steeped in undeniable truth. - Medical Economics

I was buried in a sea of charts when a colleague joined me in the physicians’ lounge. We joked about our frustrations with paperwork and patients, while somberly agreeing that medicine’s in a bad way and physicians are more and more dissatisfied.

At the same time, we recognized that many of our problems are self-induced, stemming from doctors’ tendency to ignore fundamental truths. So I set out to compile a list of what we need to remember—truths that often go unnoticed while physicians utter empty words about professionalism, duty, and healing.

The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther’s theses. I’m not Luther, and my “undeniable truths” may not be nailed to a church door. But they could be the stirrings of a healthcare reformation.

Go, read, and comprehend!

Popularity: 31% [?]

Addicted to Medblogs: Dr. April is . . . TBTAM

Congrats to TBTAM, and it’s another worthy effort.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Fort Worth man accused of trying to cash $360,000,000,000 check | TOP STORIES | KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas

08:01 AM CDT on Thursday, May 1, 2008

Dallas Morning News staff report

A man has been accused of attempting to pass a $360 billion check, which he claims was given to him by his girlfriend’s mother to start a record business, Fort Worth police said.

Charles Ray Fuller, 21, of Crowley, was arrested April 22 on an accusation of forgery, police said.

Police responded to a report of a man attempting to pass the check about 4 p.m. that day at the Chase bank in the 8600 block of South Hulen Street, Fort Worth police Lt. Paul Henderson said.

The personal check was not made out to Fuller and when the bank contacted the check owner, the woman said she did not write a check for $360 billion.

Hmm. I wonder how much 360Bn would weigh? And, did he think any bank on earth would just have that much cash?

An inauspicious beginning to his record company career.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I’m right now having some fogged windows replaced at the house.  Being a naturally curious sort, I asked about the sealant being used to secure the new windows to the frames.

It’s this stuff, which the friendly window guy didn’t know a lot about, except that it’s what they use, and “it’s strong”.

I’m exactly the kind of dork who, after reading about it, tells him a little about it (apparently is strong enough to bind the universe, can be applied in sub-freezing temps, etc).

10 minutes later I overhear him telling his co-worker: ‘hey, remember that job the other guys wouldn’t do because it was too cold?  Well, the homeowner looked up this caulk and it can be applied in sub freezing temperatures“.  Oy.  I’ve caused a problem for others, and didn’t even mean to.

The good news?  These windows have a 20 year warranty, so it’ll be a while before I cause this particular company more problems…

Popularity: 14% [?]

Dr. Val is showing the power of blogs (well, the power of professionally done blogs) by getting a one on one interview with the Surgeon General.  Read her post for the interview, but here’s the part that I enjoyed the most:

(Dr. Carmona):….The American public wants the best of everything, they want it yesterday, and they don’t want to pay for it. That pretty much characterizes the problem that we have. We see health as a right, we want somebody to give us a card, and if we want to smoke, that’s our right too. There’s this attitude that if we want to drink excessively, that’s our right, and if we want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, that’s our right (”you can’t tell us what to do”). However, when I crash my motorcycle and I have a head injury and I’m disabled for life, I also expect society to pay for that.

Heh.  I believe I’ve said something like that myself.

Popularity: 22% [?]