Constructive Criticism

From time to time we get back evaluations from many of our supervising physicians evaluated on a scale of 1-3 (1=bad, 2=average, 3=great) in a variety of categories - anything from your basic medical knowledge to your skills in certain procedures. Occasionally comments will be made to offer constructive criticisinm or feedback.

The other day I received an evaluation from an anonymous attending who gave me a 1 (bad) in the category entitled "Communicates well with staff and colleagues". In the comments they wrote "consider the use of breath mints on a routine basis."

REALLY!?!? WHO DOES THAT!?!?

First of all - can you really say that someone has bad breath based on one shift? Maybe I had some garlic laden entree that night. Maybe a tuna salad sandwich (actually that sounds pretty gross...I wouldn't have eaten that.) Bottom line - couldn't you have just offered a mint in person? I have a pretty good (although according to Jenny, somewhat basic) understanding of social mores. I would have gotten the hint. Did that really need to go into my PERMANENT record!?!? I'll never get a job now because my future employers are going to be questioning my oral hygiene.

On the other hand, maybe your evals as an intern are like a juvenile criminal record - maybe it will all get expunged when I become a second year resident. In the meantime, my new favorite flavor is spearmint.

Things I once thought were healthy...

So my wife (she indicated she wanted to remain nameless due to the definite paparazzi threat from this blog) and I got into a lively debate the other day over item number four on the following list. She came home and made the ridiculous claim that a bagel and cream cheese at a local bagel shop was over 1,000 calories. "Whoa" I said - slow your roll down a minute. I gobbled down hundreds of those over my adolescent years, and you're telling me that they have more calories than a Big Mac? In the end, a final conclusion was never reached. But I will concede that there are a lot of things out there that I once thought were healthy and probably aren't.

1.) FRUIT DRINKS - all your Tang's, Juicy Juice's, and Hawaiian Punches fit into this category. Apparently they're nothing but sugar, food coloring, fructose syrup, and more sugar. Maybe a little water mixed in to make it slide down easier. Designed to get little kids high before they can discover real drugs in high school (or middle school, depending on your school district). You're telling me that 3% real fruit juice isn't good enough?

2.) REAL FRUIT JUICE - even 100% fruit juice is apparently bad for you. Whatever. People have been drinking glasses of OJ every morning since the dawn of mankind. And I've never seen an obese neanderthal.

3.) MILK - continuing our theme or breakfast drinks, this one is apparently full of fat and is only designed by mother nature to help little infants of all species "pork up". The one notable exception is skim milk (which is about as far away from mother nature as you can get, people.) Water with white food coloring. And who's ever heard of white food coloring?

4.) BAGELS- see prologue

5.) SALADS - ever looked at the nutrition info in some of these salads at restaurants? Crazy talk. You think you're eating healthy because it is, after all, a salad. Turns out the only salad that is still a salad is a piece of lettuce and some fat-free sludge on the side. Yeah - anyone tried to dip lettuce into sludge and then eat it? Doesn't go over so well. And forget about croutons. Empty calories, folks. For more commentary on this subject, see this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZvOqYVs2ao

6.) BACON - apparently no one really ever thought this was healthy. But my grandma who lived into her 90's downed this stuff daily. In fact, I saw this on a shirt the other day:

The Fuzz are after me!

So I got pulled over on my way to work the other day. It was at 5:30 in the morning and I was the only one on the road. It was on one of those streets that is 5 lanes wide and you look back and go "that was 35 mph there? Really? Huh. Who knew?" Everyone knows one of those roads. I was 7 mph over.

Lights flash, I pull over. The officer walks up, shining his light in my eyes.

"Where are you going so fast?" (As if I was flying down the autobahn...)

"Just on my way to work sir."

"Where do you work?"

"Over at the hospital."

"What department do you work in?"

"The Emergency Department."

He clicks off his light, tips his hat and says "Sir...you have a nice day."

Now before everyone writes with claims of elitism and favoritism, you gotta understand the symbiotic relationship the police and we have in the department. They bring us a lot of business - most of it stuff that we'd rather not have. Drug deals gone bad, bar fights, or people crazy enough to resist arrest and then get injured. I bust my butt to try and get those patients out of there and back to jail because the police have better things to do than sit there and babysit these guys.

So karma is a real thing. For the rest of you, buy a white coat and keep it under the driver's seat at all times.

Facebook, Shmacebook

So my extended jury that had been out for weeks has returned a verdict. I'm over it. People laughed and mocked me for weeks for not being entrenched in the new wave sweeping the nation...facebook. "MySpace for adults" is how this was billed to me. I put it off and put it off thinking that if I really needed to do a "wall-to-wall," I could just send an email. Or better, if only we had some kind of technology that allowed us to talk into a hand-held box and let our actual voice be hear in another hand-held box miles away. Bonus points if these hand-held boxes could be portable.


Now before all of my long-lost friends pick up pitchforks and storm the Charlotte area thinking "what an idiot - he never calls or emails anyways," I will concede you that small, minuscule, and largely irrelevant point. I will also admit that the basic idea of facebook is kinda neat.




Here's my problem. This monster has gotten way past the basics and is consuming peoples' entire lives. Entire lives I tell you. "How," you may ask? With these ridiculous applications. Snowball fights, joining random groups to save random endangered species, becoming "fans" of your favorite grade school teacher, pillow fights, and sending me make out kisses (oh yeah, you better believe that's happened. Unless you're ______ ______ the last thing I want is your digital lips touching mine. (I can't mention who she is because Jenny will get mad, but she's German, blond, a supermodel, and hosts a reality TV show on Bravo.) Not to mention poking people!?!? We really allow this on the internet? What does that even mean? And yes Kim, I got your "relative finder application." Let me break it down for you real simple. You don't want to know who in my family you're related to.


I just can't keep up. You can guess from how often this blog is updated how often I actually log into facebook. So if you're my fifth cousin twice removed who has sent me some application about scavenger hunting...be patient. I'll get there when I can.

Wow. My first post. A few buisness items first. One, I really am trying to be a better person. I've tried to quit complaining many times in my life. But I've found that the bottom line is that whining really brings me joy. Plain and simple. But I figure this way, I'm not doing it in person - so that makes it less of a downer for everyone around me. Two, thanks to my beautiful wife who helped me set this up. However, she said it would be quick and easy, but that was about 3 hours and a bazillion templates ago.

I thought I would start off with something gentle. Once in a while Jenny and I try and be much more cultured than we really are and rent a "classic" movie. You know, one of those older movies that everyone seems to know or use as examples of ethical dilemas in college english papers. Anyways, our latest venture was Dr. Zhivago - a gripping tale of...well...um...Russian something or other. Seriously people. What the crap was that movie even about? (That 2 disc movie, I might add.)

Now before everyone writes and flames me for having no class, realize that I tried. I really did. I watched the entire movie, hoping that some kind of cohesive plot would emerge, but I was only to be disappointed. And cold. Just watching that movie made me freezing.

Anybody else got any other "classic" movies that we should cross off our lists now? Now yesterday I tried to watch a true holiday classic - Gremlins. With a special encoure TNT presentation of Gremlins 2:The New Batch. But this was vetoed by Jenny, who said it didn't put her "in the holiday spirit." Whatever.