First Shifts

The beginning of July marks a special event in the genesis of the doctor: spanking new interns work their first shifts as actual physicians.

As one of those interns, it's terrifying. And exhilarating. And exhausting. Once a lowly medical student, you've gone into the chrysalis of fourth year and emerged on the other side a butterfly who doesn't really know how to fly. Fragile. Awkward.

But very very pretty. (Just kidding.)

Some things I saw in my first two shifts as an emergency medicine intern:

• thrown from horse, landed on head
• psychotic patient becoming violent with family members (chief complaint was decreased urination)
• vaginal bleeding x 1.5 months
• abdominal pain in 18 year old female
• drunk, demented old man fell down stairs, cut open forehead
• neck laceration from broken beer bottle
• firework exploded into eye - globe rupture
• drug rash
• accidental finger amputation
• blurry vision x 1 week
• generalized itching with a "rash" that was invisible to my eyes
• out of percocet (x2)
• facial abscess
• urosepsis
• dog bite

Could there be a better field than this??? (I will give you a hint. The answer is no.) OK, so it takes me a ridiculously long time to sew up a small lac (I had to put in some deeps, though). And to write a basic prescription. And to dictate anything. I'll get better with time. And those crazy, funny, heart-warming, smelly, sweet, fantastic patients will still be there.

DT: David Tennant's first acting job

Oh, this is so eighties that it almost hurts to watch. Appears to be an anti-smoking teen sort of thing. A small part, but at least it was a speaking role. :-)

DW: why you should watch Doctor Who -- a brief introduction

Doctor Who is a cult phenomenon here in the US. If you've heard of it at all, it's likely in relation to crazy convention-going sci-fi fanatics who flinch at the sun and smell of elderberries. And yet it's one of the most popular television programs in Britain, where watching it is as much a part of pop culture as something like "Lost" or "The West Wing" is here and it is considered a show for the whole family to enjoy together.

The years and years and years of history can be intimidating to the new viewer -- it started in 1965 and has been going strong ever since. Even in the 15 year hiatus without new TV episodes, the story lived on in books and audio dramas (audio dramas! Radio plays! I love Britain!) and a TV movie. But don't despair -- the 2005 revival was conceived to be accessible to new audiences and it seems likely that the new season beginning in April 2010 under the new direction of showrunner Steven Moffat will be similarly kind to newbies.

So without further ado, a brief introduction to the Doctor.

Medicine: Dr. James Barry

Had to write a paper for my medical history class; this is the result. Interesting to speculate about, to say the least:

The Curious Story of Dr. James Barry
(Who May or May Not Have Been England’s First Female Physician)

In 1809, a young man named James Barry enrolled at the University of Edinburgh as a medical student. He graduated in 1812 and went on to a distinguished yet controversial career as a military surgeon and Inspector-General of Hospitals in the British army. On July 25, 1865, the lifelong bachelor Dr. Barry died, alone and penniless, of dysentery in a rented room. In August, 1865, the servant who had dressed his corpse for burial reported to Army agents and to Barry’s physician, Dr. William McKinnon, that the body she had dressed was a “perfect female.” And thereby hangs a tale.

DW: everywhere and anywhere

New trailer up!

"All of time and space. Everywhere and anywhere. Every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?"

This is why I watch Doctor Who.



(On the off chance that you actually watched it, the effects look a bit dodgy because this was actually shown in 3D in British theaters.)

gleeeeeeeeee!: new preview

So excited!!

Shopping: Chocolat Blu

So excited, darlings!!!

After months and months of looking at Rue La La and finding things I liked that were always either a) sold out or b) not available in my preferred size and/or color or c) way too frakking expensive, I finally managed to make a purchase!



I adore them. I hope they fit. Bring on summer!!!

Book reviews: The Secret Country and The Parable of the Sower

Sometimes I just need to disengage. To retreat from the-world-as-it-is into a world of another's dreaming. This weekend was one of those times.

I read The Secret Country trilogy by Pamela Dean. She is the author of one of my very favorite coming-of-age books, Tam Lin, and so I was excited to dive in. The basic premise is that a family of children (brother, sister, and cousins) have a game they play every summer in which they vividly imagine life in their "Secret Country," and act out all the different parts. They create tales of magic and intrigue, assassination and war, in which they are princes and princesses at court. Of course they are then somehow transported into a real live version of their game, but not everything looks as they had imagined it. Some things are just perfect, but there's a character that they didn't write, others won't stay on script, and while they've somehow managed to gain access to some of their character's abilities (magic, sword-fighting, musicianship), they don't have them all. Their attention is divided between trying to play their parts well enough that no one notices, trying to discover how they were able to get there in the first place, and trying to thwart the dramatic and disastrous plot that they themselves created.

On the whole, it was good but not great. (I don't mean to damn it with faint praise; I really did enjoy it.) I think it could have benefited a great deal from a little more aggressive editing. The pace is at times very slow and the story drags, but then all of a sudden things happen in the blink of an eye without a whole lot of explanation. It's a young adult series, really, and I think younger readers might have had trouble following a few of the story's twists and turns. It is my understanding that she has returned to this world and written some adult work, and I am interested in reading it.

The other book I read was Octavia E. Butler's The Parable of the Sower. This is a book (and an author) I've been meaning to read for ages so I'm delighted that I loved it every bit as much as I hoped I would. The setting is a near-future Southern California, which has become (along with the rest of the US) a dystopia in which law and order as we know it have essentially ceased to exist. Guns and drugs are everywhere, the police are expensive, ineffectual, and almost as likely to rob you as the roving bands of homeless people, drug addicts, and gangs. Water is more expensive than gasoline. Gasoline is no longer used to fuel vehicles, but instead to start arson fires that drive people out of their settlements so that the scavengers and squatters can move in. What few paying jobs still exist are largely in the hands of huge multinational corporations, and the recently elected President has created laws that essentially allow a return to the days of the "company town" and debt slavery.

Growing up in a small walled enclave, the main character, Lauren, struggles with normal late adolescence issues, with her strict Baptist minister father and her step-mother and step-brothers, with the immanent threat of the destruction of what remains of her community, and with an inherited condition passed to her by her dead, drug-addicted mother: hyperempathy syndrome. Lauren feels the pain (and, rarely, the pleasure) of those around her.

She also struggles with finding her own faith, her own reason for being, and her own God. She discovers/creates a religion she calls Earthseed, based on her own keen observances of life and her study of other religions. The basis of Earthseed, in her words, is:

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change.

As Lauren and her discovered companions make their way north, fleeing the tragedies in their wake, these words take on enormous power. I absolutely loved this book. The writing is simply beautiful -- spare, haunting, and brilliant. The main character is a triumph. The religion piece is organic and thoughtful. There is a sequel -- The Parable of the Talents -- that I intend to read at my earliest opportunity. And I will be reading Butler's other works, as well, I can promise you that.

Lists: snow-things I would build if I had a yard

(image source)

And a modicum of artistic ability, too.

1. snow TARDIS
2. snow Alien (the one, the only)
3. snow Cylon
4. snow hand (Manos, baby, Manos)
5. snow Darth Vader
6. snow ROUS
7. snow Zoidberg
8. snow Ood
9. snow Weeping Angel
10. snow Godzilla

(h/t io9 for the idea)

I'm not sure I'm ready for all of this...

Just joined Twitter, and now there is the Google Buzz thing going on.

I'd just sort of gotten Google Reader figured out.

What on earth am I getting myself into???

A world of no: Tennant tattoo

As anyone who knows me could tell you, I'm more than a bit of a David Tennant fangirl.

My fannishness, however, positively pales in comparison to this person's:



For a tattoo, it's actually quite good. But, still... no. Just... no.

Window shopping: the art of medicine

For ages now I have wanted to decorate my dining room with vintage public health posters (mostly VD but with TB and other stuff thrown in, too). Thus far the primary limiting factor has been that I don't have a dining room. Why do this in a dining room? I don't know, exactly. Your average person probably does not find venereal disease an appetizing topic. It pretty much comes down to process of elimination. The bedroom? Even more inappropriate. The kitchen? Usually not enough wall space to do what I'd really like to do. The bathroom? Ditto. The living room? Perhaps, but I've got a bit of a different idea for that. And so on.

The secondary limiting factor has been finding high-quality, large reproductions of them. I've had seriously varying degrees of success buying prints online, so I'm a bit hesitant. I don't have the funds right now to frame them anyway, so I'm going to hold off for a bit. But that doesn't mean I can't look and imagine!!!

Take a tour through the wonderful world of public health after the jump.

Rambles: Poetry

(photo: my crappy iPhone camera)

A little patch of sun before the clouds and snow and gloom threaten again. Loved the twisted shapes of the dried vegetation on the iron gate.
__________________________________________

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

--T.S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a Windy Night

Window shopping: Hispanitas

So as I was walking past the shoe store, I noticed that they were having a weekend sale. I stopped in to see if the pair of Hispanitas shoes I'd been lusting after for the last few months were on sale. (The image above is sadly not of the ones I wanted, but I couldn't find a pic of them online after ages and ages of searching. They're fabulous, though, and I want them, too!)

The good news is that they were. The bad news is that they were still too expensive for me to buy.

More pics of gorgeous shoes that I want very badly, after the cut.

Feeding the YouTube addiction: bittersweet

The best Doctor Who vidder in the biz, Seduff, has posted a farewell to David Tennant. It's brilliant.

I recommend viewing full screen in HD (the picture quality is outstanding).

a friendly push + procrastination = me blogging again

Been quite a while, but I'm back. Thanks, t, for the provocation. :)