When I was young and foolish, or very smart depending on your perspective, I married a man who is five and a half years older than me. When my husband was my age (and never trust a woman who will tell you her age, but between you and me I am 58), he started to… Continue reading Perspective
Category: General Observations
Let’s Get Physical
In his great book “Cutting For Stone”, Abraham Verghese describes one of his main characters, Dr. Marion Stone, as being obsessed with a certain aspect of the physical exam. Dr. Stone, as the dictatorial chief of surgery at a major Boston teaching hospital, has drilled into his residents the necessity of performing a rectal exam… Continue reading Let’s Get Physical
Men in Scrubs
The other day I was sitting in morning conference and one of my colleagues walks in wearing scrubs. I have no idea why he was wearing scrubs because we are not surgeons, but I assume he had been doing some procedure in the OR. Now this particular man is short in stature, but huge in… Continue reading Men in Scrubs
My Front Man
My front man is a woman. I learned the value of a front man in a radiation therapy department when I was a resident, and the front man Paul was a man who greeted one hundred and fifty patients a day with a smile and a word of encouragement. The actual sex of the front man… Continue reading My Front Man
Have You Done Your Sexual Harassment Training Yet?
The bureaucrats finally caught up with me. When you work for the state, even if you’re a university medical center employee, not a bona fide government worker who puts the phone on voice mail and spends the rest of the day saying “that’s not in my job description”, there are just certain things you have… Continue reading Have You Done Your Sexual Harassment Training Yet?
Hunger Strike
The Q’s will not eat. My two female deerhound sisters, Queen and Quicksilver, aka Quibbets and Little Grey, are coming four years old in January. They are both AKC Grand Champions and as such, I have not spayed them yet, thinking that perhaps I will breed a litter, my first since my only prior litter… Continue reading Hunger Strike
Fight On!
Several years ago my second child, a very gregarious son, applied for college. We were hoping of course that he would join the ranks of the Ivy League, but barring that, a merit scholarship to one of the wonderful University of California schools would have pleased us greatly. But my son had other ideas. He,… Continue reading Fight On!
Cancer is Not a Lifestyle
I’m not sure when I stopped being merely opinionated, and became a true curmudgeon. But I think it was about the same time that medical students started telling me that radiation oncology is one of the “lifestyle” specialties in medicine. According to the National Resident Matching Program, this year radiation oncology ranked 5th on the… Continue reading Cancer is Not a Lifestyle
Go Ahead Kids!
Okay, I confess. I have smoked a few cigarettes in my time. In fact, more than a few. While my teenaged brother was hiding his favorite smoking material in the Encyclopedia Britannica under the letter “M” (much to the horror of my mother, who decided she needed to read up on this new scourge called … Continue reading Go Ahead Kids!
I am a Dog Person
If it’s true that in this world there are cat people and dog people, I am most definitely a dog person. I cannot remember a time when I have had fewer than four dogs. Most of my like-minded friends think that this is normal. My chosen breed is the Scottish Deerhound. This is a very… Continue reading I am a Dog Person