Halloween

Halloween

Man, is it a scary time of year.

Not only are the Christmas decorations up at the shops to get you in the mood (way too early, if you ask me…), but all over the TV the only thing you see are images of Frankenstein, the village idiot, a lawyer, and the Living Dead.

You thought I meant Halloween? No – I was talking about the Presidential election with Kerry, Bush, Edwards and Cheney!

This is my oh-so-subtle way to remind all of you to get out to the polls on Tuesday and vote. While I do have a preference as to who wins (I won’t say who, ‘cause I’ll alienate either my mom or my dad), I’m really more interested in getting as many people to the polls as possible. Remember, you can’t complain if you don’t vote!

Speaking of complaining (King of the Segue, I tells ya), Daylight Savings stinks. OK, it’s a good idea; it helps the farmers and keeps the trains on time – but we change our clocks this weekend, which is a little later than usual (Note to Mom: the time change is now 3.5 hours and carry the ‘one’ with a change of the sign, multiplied by the tangent of……. On second thought, I’ll call you.). So this morning, 2 days before the time change, the sun rose over Adelaide at 5:15am. Which would be fine, if I wasn’t so light sensitive. Meaning, a nightlight has the ability to keep me up. While rising with the sun has some rather noble aspects to it – you know, making hay while the sun shines and all – it really makes it hard to sleep after being up until the early hours of the AM studying for exams…

And speaking of exams (Two segues in one email!), I am happy to announce the Second Annual Make Bryan Dinner competition. Like last year, entry is free and open to everyone – I have enough raffle tickets for all of you. The grand prize is to make Bryan dinner while he studies for exams – of course, the winner has to provide airfare, accommodation, transfers, and groceries – but I have plenty of cookware that you can use, and I’ll even dust off a bottle of wine from my cellar!

Somehow, I don’t think I will have any more takers this year than last year…

Today for my peds performance review, I had to do a CSA; a Clinical Skills Assessment. It’s where a senior doctor observes as you do a history and exam on a real-live patient. (Hopefully live; it’s a little hard to get a history from a patient in the morgue. But I digress.) I’ve done a bunch of these this year, but today was the first one on a kid. Which would have been ok, had I done any work thus far with anyone over the age of 3 weeks or under the age of 65 years. I mean, I have successfully made it to the end of my 6th week of peds and haven’t even touched a toddler – a pretty good average, if you ask me. I passed the CSA but I think things will change next week – I start my 2 weeks of inpatients on Monday, where I’ll be dealing with lots of sick kiddies every day.

Again, pray for me.

And with that, it’s the weekend. With exams starting three weeks from Saturday, I’ll spend my time on Saturday with the study group, and Sunday huddled up with a good textbook. Not to mention trying to figure out the time difference – was it carry the one or multiply by 4…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan

Urban GP

Urban GP

Spring has finally sprung over here.

While this may seem like a good thing to many, it creates a few problems for me. Mostly it has to do with the array of fashions and fashion-statements the warm weather has brought out. Case in point: I was going for a run on the beach yesterday when I saw a guy taking his grandson down to the water for a bit of a swim. Grandad was shirtless, wearing a pair of denim shorts that were being pushed down by his Dunlop. (Dunlop is a common problem; it’s what you call it when your stomach dun-lopped over your waistband. But I digress.) Now, to help his shorts with this dilemma, Pappy had enlisted the aid of a pair of bright-yellow-with-purple-polka-dots suspenders.

I wonder how his tan lines will look…

It gets worse, though. I was with a few classmates driving home from the Women’s and Kid’s hospital when we passed a home-construction site. It was a nice day, bright sun and really warm, which makes no excuses for the Occupational Health and Safety issues one would expect while wearing leather work boots with your Speedo’s while hammering a roof into place.

Work boots and Speedo’s. And nothing else.

And he doesn’t even come close to the guy I saw sunning himself on the beach. He was wearing what my sister refers to as a ‘banana hammock’ – use your imagination and you’ll probably get it right. I have seen more material in a tissue than this guy was wearing!

Ya gotta hope he has a lot of sunscreen for his, uh, pink bits…

I don’t think I have mentioned it, but over the past 2-3 months I have been spending Wednesday mornings with Dr. Rob Wight, an Urban GP – urban meaning he practices medicine without the benefit of sheeps and cows. His practice is in an area called Christie’s Beach, about 20 minutes from my apartment. Dr. Wight was kind enough (or mean enough, depending on your point of view) to subject his patients to me. I would spend time with the victims, er, patients, getting to know them and addressing their needs and concerns. It gave me plenty of time and ‘volunteers’ to practice my skills on. As I am fairly sure I want to I want to practice office-based medicine when I finish up (unless the Red Sox call me up to bat clean-up before the start of the World Series on Sunday), I can say it has easily been the most educational and fulfilling experience of medical school so far.

For me, that is. I think his patients will be recovering from the crazy American for a long time…

And with that, it’s the weekend. Exams are 4 weeks from tomorrow, so the studying is in full swing.
I’ll spend some time tonight doing paperwork for school loans, and another all-day study session tomorrow, followed by studying on Saturday night along with some light review and book work on Sunday. Not to mention taking a few moments to find some suspenders to match my Speedo’s and work boots – ya gotta coordinate…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan

Election

Election

Can you believe the election this year? You’ve got two candidates running dead-even in the latest polls; both major parties coming up with ways to throw money around to get votes; and their positions on the issues of the day – the economy, Iraq – are being spun. All the while, nobody is really saying *anything* of substance. If the election were tomorrow, I don’t know who I would vote for.

Oh, wait. The election *is* tomorrow. What, you thought I was talking about the US?

Nope. Not only do I get to enjoy the fireworks of the US election on TV here, I get to experience an Australian election as well. And let me tell you, it is *very* different. First up – and I think this is *very* Australian – the election isn’t held on any certain day. Whenever the Prime Minister (At this point, it’s John Howard – how many of you knew that?) looks at the calendar, picks a date that doesn’t conflict with important events like beer-drinking contests or football finals (Wait – those are the same thing!), he calls an election for sometime down the track. This year, Johnny decided to have a long campaign.

6 weeks.

Yes, you heard right. From the time the election was called to when folks here vote it’s *6 weeks* - and that’s considered *long*! When you compare this to the dog-and-pony show going on in the US for over a year now, it sounds downright quaint! The political commercials on TV end days before the actual election, the candidates are actually polite to each other, and both parties combined only spend about $60 million trying to win (I think Cheney alone spends that much on heart medication!). The whole process is almost enough for me to stay in Australia.

Almost.

But something I find interesting is that voting is mandatory here. If you don’t show up to cast your vote, the come find you and give you a fine. You can nominate Skippy the Kangaroo for Prime Minister with your ballot, but you have to at least show up to stay out of trouble. Now, here comes the soap box from Bryan: get out and vote November 2 in the US elections – none of you have any excuse. If I can vote for the next President from 10,000 miles away (just put the absentee ballot in the mail), you all can go to your local polling place and press the lever, check the box or punch the chad (Just make sure you get it all the way out this time. Especially if you live in Florida.). It’s one of the greatest freedoms we enjoy as Americans, and one of the responsibilities for living in a free country.

Not to mention it gives you the right to complain if the other guy wins. Here ends the sermon.

Now, back to school. My current peds rotation is pediatric surgery combined with neonatology – or, dealing with bubs smaller than a beer. I’ve been spending time in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) with the littlest patients – some weighing less than 2 pounds – with more tubes in them than an old radio. Not to say they aren’t feisty – I was helping with a newborn the other day; she was born premature and needed a little help. It took two adults to hold her still so they could insert an IV line.

Probably because one adult was me and the bub was covered in baby juice…

And with that, it’s the weekend. Exams start in 6 weeks, so most of my time is taken up with studying, reading textbooks and practicing exams. Not to mention trying to get baby juice off my hands…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan