The guy on the thing

2002-11-08 - 10:35 p.m.

If you're looking for something stimulating and/or interesting, this may not be the place for it. I've decided that this Friday I will actually participate in The Friday Five. I've been thinking about doing it for quite some time now, but usually by the time I remember it's Monday or something and then it just seems pointless. Although this week's Friday Five don't look very interesting to me anyway, at least it's Friday, so I'll give it a go. But here we go: The Friday Five.

1. Did you vote in your last elections?

Of course I voted. It just seems wrong not to. Even though I voted for someone for governor that I knew had no chance of winning, I still voted. But at least this way I can rightfully say, "That's not the guy I voted for!" whenever the governor screws us over, as he undeniably will. Imagine all those suffregettes way back when fighting for my right to vote. And all those idiot men fighting so hard to prevent it. It seems after all that it would just be wrong for me not to take advantage.

2. Do you know who your elected representatives are?

Representatives? No...I'm sure if you showed me their names I would recognize them, though.

3. Have you ever contacted an elected representative? If so, what was it about?

No, I can't say that I've ever been that incensed about anything which I thought my representative could do anything about.

4. Have you ever participated in a demonstration?

I once participated in a demonstration in my physical assessment class in which my professor demonstrated how to elicit reflexes in patients using me as the model.Turns out I'm hyporeflexive. At least while sitting in front of a large crowd of onlookers. But I don't think that's what you meant.

5. Have you ever volunteered in an election?

No, and I don't plan on it.

**********

It's weird. On the one night of the week I can actually sleep in and thus attempt to fill in some of my perpetual sleep defecit, I insist on staying up late. Why is that? What is it that inspires me to do this? Repeatedly?

I have these things that go through my mind and I really want to talk about them. They range from weighty introspective things to little inconsequentialities that flit through my head but still ache to be discussed. But for some reason I have trouble getting these things out of me. They ricochet around in my skull but as soon as I try to get a firm grasp on them and type them out, they tend to get all amorphic and intangible. Imagine if I had a printer attached to my brain and I somehow got a hardcopy of all my thoughts. I wonder what it would be like. It probably wouldn't make too much sense. I mean, I don't think in complete sentences, do you? Heck, I don't even really think in words. The hardcopy would be pretty funky.

On Monday, after working out at the gym, while walking back to my car, my dad asked what I thought about during the forty minutes that I'm running so that I don't get bored. I couldn't even come close to answering that question. I like to ask people that question, though, as sort of a screener. What do you think about? Well, no, I don't walk up to strangers and ask them that, that was more of a screener back when I used to talk to random people online. Somehow you have to sort out the boring from the not-so-boring from the my-wife-and-I-are-looking-for-someone-to-make-a-threesome. The only problem is that probably I wouldn't be able to pass that test. I'd probaby be grouped with the rest of the boring people. What do I think about? I spend a lot of time planning. What I'm going to do with my day, what I'm going to do tomorrow, next month, next year, ten years from now, how I'm going to spoil my grandkids. I think about the places I'd like to be. I think about the people/person I'd like to have with me. I think about life, the why's and the how's. I also tend to think a lot about how much I suck.

Tonight, one of the pharmacists had a barbecue at his place for the pharmacy students and residents. Thumbtack paged me yesterday at nearly five to tell me about it. I didn't go. First of all, I've never said more than "hi" to this pharmacist. Secondly, I only know about five of the students. Thirdly, his house is in Elk Grove, which is southwest of Sac while I live northeast of it, making for quite a long trip. Fourthly, I just didn't feel like it. And I don't regret not going. I can't imagine being anything but bored there and I'm sure nobody missed me.

My stomach hurts and it has been hurting for about three days now. It's actually not my stomach. I'd have to describe it more as diffuse abdominal pain. The whole area framed by my ribs and pelvis feels like it's on fire and there is an ice pick sticking up under my ribs on the far left side. But this is not unusual. This has been going on for four years. You know, in clinic we laugh at people like me. People come in to urgent care with a chief complaint of abdominal pain X3 years. And we're like, yeah, real urgent. Speaking of unhealthy residents, yesterday when I went to the clinic there were a couple of chest x-rays up on the light box. Even I could tell that there was something very wrong with that patient and I have about zero expertise in radiology. Turns out that the x-ray was of the chest of one of our medical residents. She was actually admitted with bilobar pneumonia.

Speaking of radiology, I had this idea. You know how recently x-rays are available through computers? Clinicians no longer have to find a hardcopy of an x-ray, they just go to a computer and pull up a digital copy. So if that's the case, why do they need radiologists in house? Couldn't the radiologist work from home? All they need is a phone and fast internet connection and they could do radiology consults from home. Not only that, but they wouldn't be restricted to reading stuff from just one hospital. They could contract out or something. If they were consulting from their recliners, don't you think radiologists could get through a lot more films? A health system could hire just one or two radiologists for all of their hospitals instead of having to staff several at each hospital. Not only that, but the radiologist could go bigger, nationwide even. Imagine, they could specialize in, say, chest x-rays, and anytime anyone anywhere needed a consult on a chest film they could call that particular radiologist at home and they could call it up on their laptop and read it right there and then. What do you think? Get together a bunch of radiologists and try it. Start a company, We-B-Radiology, and become a millionaire.