What is it about 20-somethings?

This article , "What is it about 20-somethings," from the NY Times Magazine was actually quite boring, being more about history than science.

However, it did inform me that a 30-year-old today is about as mature as a 25-year-old from the 1970s:

We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

When I read the 'five milestones to adulthood', I felt badly about the fact that I'd already achieved 4 of them. You see, I really don't like the idea of getting older. Don't get me wrong--getting older is obviously better than the alternative. It just seems to imply gaining a whole lot of responsibility at the cost of a whole lot of fun. (Not that I actually do have have a lot of fun now...but I like the idea that I could have fun if I wanted to.) Plus, you get wrinkles. And bifocals. And arthritis.

But, there seem to be some benefits...namely, chances are, when you get older, you make a lot more money, which you can spend doing things that are fun...or, at least, buying things that are cool, which is a reasonable approximation of fun, and perhaps the best an old person can muster.

Alaskan Doctor's Exploding Cabin

Sometimes the Doctor and I contemplate moving to Alaska once this whole residency thing is finished.  Once there, we imagine life will be filled with lots of adventures.  Adventures like this:

Talkeetna's only physician came within about 20 minutes of losing his life early Tuesday morning when a faulty stove pipe and 47 pounds of gunpowder in his log cabin clinic caused an explosion that blew out the back door and incinerated most of the building.

Read more here. I, for one, welcome the days when we need to be mindful that out stove doesn't cause our 47 pounds of gunpowder to blow up our rudimentary frontier health clinic/law office.

Pictured:  Adventures on the frontier.

Leeches

My excitement on-call this weekend?

Medical leeches.

Awesome. Welcome to the 1700s.

Bathroom Plans

Someday, I want our master bathroom to look something like these...




...apparently, I have a lot of work to do.

Fire Drill

I heard the following story on the radio recently.

In brief, a high school math teacher who motivates inner city students by teaching them chess was being interviewed. He himself learned chess as a kid in the Ukraine, before he moved to America at age six.

So, the six-year-old future math teacher moves to America and his parents enroll him in first grade. The school year has already started, so he tries to fit in as best he can. Problem is, he does not speak English. At all. No English.

School is hard -- not the material, but the not-understanding-what's-going-on-because-I-don't-understand-the-language part.

Then, the school hosts a fire drill. Apparently, there are no fire drills in Ukraine, and the kid doesn't really know what's going on. Plus, he's in the bathroom--alone--so he can't see everyone filing out to the school yard. It turns out, while they don't have fire drills, the Ukrainians do have faulty equipment, so the kid just assumes that something has broken in the school building's wiring and is making a strange noise.

So, he washes up and traipses back to his classroom. He finds it empty. 'Strange,' he thinks. He wanders to the next-door classroom, and finds, curiously, that it is empty as well.
In a moment of true problem-solving, the kid decides, 'it's almost lunch time, I guess everyone just went to lunch early.' He wanders to the cafeteria. No one is there, but there are plenty of lunches lined up on the counter. He reaches to take one, and, at that exact moment, a hairnetted lunch-lady runs out from the kitchen, shouting, "THIS IS A FIRE DRILL. YOU MUST GO OUTSIDE. WHY ARE YOU IN HERE???? PUT DOWN THAT LUNCH AND LEAVE RIGHT NOW."

As the math teacher/chess play is relating all this, the radio host interrupts him and says, "That must have been so confusing. It must have been exhausting never knowing what was happening and being so disoriented all the time. I bet you went home that afternoon and thought to yourself 'I can't take this anymore. I never want to go back.'"

At that moment, I couldn't help but think that the kid's experience was a lot like being an intern. Things happen in the hospital, and you don't know why. Patients have bad outcomes, and you don't know why. Tests get ordered, but not completed. Patients refuse blood-draws. Medical students fail to learn simple concepts. Physical Therapy doesn't come. Surgeries are done in the OR, and you don't know what they are. And at the end of the day, some metaphorical-lunch-lady is always yelling at you, for reasons you can't really make out.

The Glow of Good Health

If you Google "glowing with good health," you will find this image:

Now, this isn't really what I had in mind...so, I tried another option-- "fine physical specimen" -- which I feared might veer into the realm of pornography...but, as an intrepid blogger, I carried on.

Porn it was not, but still not what I wanted:

You see, this photo is of a fat guy, and what I wanted was an image to demonstrate "the glow of good health" and being "a fine physical specimen".

I wanted these images to contrast with the picture I'm about to paint of the typical resident-in-training.

Throughout my years as a medical student, I used the following terms to describe the physical appearance of most residents: 'soft,' 'doughy,' 'pale.'

'How do they let themselves go like this?' I thought. 'I won't be like that,' I thought.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

(pot, meet kettle)

The jury is in: I've been a resident for the past 8 weeks, and I've already developed a bloom of subtle flabbiness. What once were (slightly) rippling muscles now sag wanly. There are divots where divots weren't before, and bulge-y peaks that I hadn't seen during my carefree days as a medical student.

Oh well... Chalk up my physical well-being to the cost of medical training... It can go on the same tab as 1) all my free time, 2) reading for pleasure, 3) staying up past 9pm, 4) sleeping past 5am, 5) my 20s, 6) etc.

American Cliches

I count no fewer than 6 typical European stereotypes about Americans (and two hilarious asides) in this article written by a Serbian girl who came to the US to lifeguard at a suburban pool.

An excerpt:

Last year, no one came to my small pool. All day and I'd see nobody anywhere, except when it was time to walk the dogs. Americans do a lot of walking the dog. In Serbia, our dogs know how to go on a walk alone.

The only big one that's missing is a pointed reminder of how fat we all are....even our pets.

As I cut the grass in our front yard today, I met our new neighbors that have just moved in across the street from us.  Their number consisted of a wife with her toddler-aged son, a mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law's teenage daughter.  I let loose with some of my trademark banter and welcomed all to the neighborhood.

During our conversation, our next door neighbors also came out to meet the newcomers, and they were followed by their cat, Pepper.  Pepper is a very friendly long haired cat that spends as much time in our yard as she does anywhere else, and Jessica has become enamored with her.  As the next door neighbors made excuses for their cat running wild about the neighborhood, I mentioned that we liked the cat, and that Jessica in particular had missed seeing Pepper when our next door neighbors were gone for their most recent vacation.


The mother-in-law's eyes immediately lit up, and evidently hoping to find a playmate for her young grandson asked, "And how old is Jessica?"  I paused for a moment and answered, "She's twenty-five."

Who Am I?

As previously discussed, The Tell played its last show on July 30, 2010 at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill.  Here is a clip of the band playing one of its older, but seldom played live, songs:  Who Am I?

Someone steal my pager...I'm begging you.

Got the following hilarious page from my Chief Resident on Vascular Surgery, regarding a patient whose operation I was scheduled to assist with:

JLlo -- unfortunately, your patient presented to preop with confusion and new o2 requirement -- case cancelled. sorry! (it wasn't because he heard you would be operating on him)

This page was obviously more entertaining than some other electronic gems I received today, such as:

So-and-so, rm ####: Pt also is complaining of indigestion following lunch. XXXX, RN.

or

Rm ####, Pt So-and-so. patient states that his Right foot hurts worse than it did prior to surgery. he states that "the doctor didn't fix anything!" thanks, XXXX, RN.

Obviously, I hate my pager.