Interesting healthcare discussion

Before I get to the real meat of this post, my last call wasn’t really my last. Funny how things work. A fellow coworker had to go on medical leave and guess who got stuck covering her ass? In the 3 days I covered, I worked 2X as much as I would’ve worked the whole week on the rotation I was on. :wallbash:

Now to the main story.

I found an interesting topic on the Anesthesia forums regarding job satisfaction. There was a member of the USAF promoting a socialized care system based on what he’d seen in the movies and his interactions with military style medicine. One post really stuck out as a well informed response and an overview of the current state of affairs in medicine today. I’ll admit it’s may come off as a tad extreme and “soapboxy” but the USAF guy was the one threatening to kill people.

Click below to read the long response.

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The Golden Rule

I like listening to this guy’s editorials on KNX AM1070 and I thought this one was especially good.

» The Golden Rule by Michael Josephson

Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, Confucius was asked, “Is there one word that may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?”

He answered, “Reciprocity. What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” This basic principle, now called the Golden Rule, can be found in every major religion and philosophy.

Many people evoke one version or another of this rule, but it’s often misused. The Golden Rule is not a rule of enlightened self-interest. Sure, people are more likely to be nice to you if you’re nice to them, but the moral center of this principle is lost if you simply view it as a rule of exchange: Do unto others so they will do unto you or do unto others as they have done unto you, let alone do unto others before they do unto you.

The core of the Golden Rule is a moral obligation to treat others ethically for their sake, not ours, even if it’s better than the way they treat us. That means we should be honest to liars, fair to the unjust, and kind to cruel people.

Why? Not because it’s advantageous, but because it’s right. The way I treat others is about who I am, not who they are. It’s like the man who broke off an argument that descended to name-calling by saying, “Sir, I will treat you as a gentleman – not because you’re one, but because I’m one.”

It’s true that if we commit to always treating others the way we want to be treated, we’ll be taken advantage of occasionally. But that’s also true of those who are always trying to outsmart their neighbor.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

Quote of the day

Saw this on my iGoogle homepage under the “Quotes of the Day” section. Doesn’t relate to anything in particular for me right now, but it’s something to think about:

One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead. – Oscar Wilde

Price we pay

I thought the article below was interesting. The question of its validity is even mentioned but, sadly, it still speaks using an international and multicultural language. :ponder:

» Cost of war

Rain rain

I just realized that I haven’t actually seen rain since I left Michigan in March. In fact, it was raining in MI the day I left.

I kinda miss the changing weather a little now that I think about it; I’m even looking forward to the fall and winter. Sometimes, I wish it would snow here a little during the holidays. :crybaby:

If you look closely at the forecast, you’ll notice the sunny days will return shortly. But that’s cool too…for now.

Persistence

Some of our friends are going through some trying times so I thought it was fitting when I came across this today.

I know the preview is tremendously small, so click to enlarge.

Bill Watterson, Oct. 28, 1995.

Pump weirdness = goodness

So I’m on my way home from Ann Arbor and stop by the local BP gas pump to fuel up. So I was just minding my own business and doing the fill up routine: swipe card, open gas cap, choose octane, glance at price, glance at price again, confused and tilt head to side. . .wait, that’s not part of the routine.

HUH?? Weird. So now I’m no longer minding my own business but trying to keep under the radar and make sure no one notices the error. I press 93. In the meantime, I’m trying to peek at their sign at the street to check the prices. Darn a car is blocking my line of sight. So I look at the pump to see if it’s really charging me what I thought. I look again at the prices and notice the decimal moved one spot to the left making it a tidy $.2359/gal Couldn’t get a good shot of it but this is what I got when I looked up.

I blinked a few times before the guy came out and said it was an error and made me stop filling. I started daydreaming about selling this stuff when they shut off the pumps to fix the problem. . .

But wait, it gets even better. I ended up getting 9 gallons for zero dollars.

From dangerous to safest in 20 miles

It was brought to my attention today while shootin’ the shit with some of the surgery residents that our 20 mile move was actually a much larger one.

The residents were looking up the recently released FBI stats on the safest and most dangerous cities in America. In a quick 20 minute drive up the I-75, we moved from the 2nd most dangerous to the 6th safest. Even a Detroitian can tell you Troy is safer than Detroit, but I never consciously thought that everyday I travel from the top to the bottom, and when I’m not on call, back again.

>> City crime rankings

The twilight zone.

It wasn’t just any haircut. I was talking about getting a haircut one day and my classmate said her mother owned a salon. Two weeks later, I decided to see what it was all about.

While the hair stylist and I were engaged in small talk, she mentioned some local festival. It was appropriately named Sterlingfest since we were in Sterling Heights. Hmm. Thirty minutes later Geline and I were waiting in line to hop on a shuttle from a local church parking lot, but not till after being the victim of an extremely obese white woman’s road rage. Here, I bought my first cup of lemonade from a real stand operated by 10-year olds. Half-way to the festival, we actually began wondering how we ended up where we were. We were told it had food and we were hungry.

The place looked like your average smorgasbord of festivities and rides. However, it was a freakish carnival on one end, with straw on the ground, odd people lurking around, and scary carnival game operators asking us what our nationality was. On the other end, there was an art fair sort of thing with your jewelry stand here, a kettle corn stand there, and one stand selling squirrel houses that looked really similar to bird houses. At another stand the sight of a magical dish lured us into a purchase.

As we wandered deeper, the sights and sounds began to blend and melt together into a hypnotizing and unescapeable kaleidoscope. On stage, there was even a group of people shaking and dancing and singing as if they were 30 years younger called the Contours. We got trapped in the parking lot after deciding to leave. While we sat wondering what to do, a man with a huge smile released the caution tape that was blocking our escape.

We finally returned to the real world where someone somewhere lives with four of my very first stitches in her abdomen. The haircut? It was good.

Does Michigan celebrate Independence Day?

Apparently not.

I checked all the websites of the state and all major cities nearby. There are absolutely no public events anywhere. Has the 4th become too much of a family and friends day? It should be a public celebration. There aren’t even any public fireworks displays today, the 4th of July, AKA Independence Day. Wait, Detroit had its display on the 1st; 1st does not equal 4th, I hope. I would imagine such a holiday, a national one even, would draw a little more interest in public awareness of such an important day and at least education for the children.

Of all the cities, Ann Arbor was the only city that had any information available on their website and it was for a 1 hour parade at 10 am.

I thought this was part of the Heartland of America. Or perhaps, the people of Michigan don’t like to publish important information on the web.

I guess I’ll just have to toss some meat on the grill for old times.