Homeowners!

Ballard is a nice place – and I think it’s even nicer now that I live there. 🙂

 A.J. and I bought a townhome in Ballard and we moved (a lot of) our things in last weekend.  We’ve spent all our free time since then moving things, unpacking, organizing, and of course doing lots and lots of laundry.  We donated a truckload of clothes/kitchen stuff/random items to Goodwill the other day (which felt great) and we’re getting cloer to be all moved in.

It is so exciting, and our place is great!  It’s brand new (just finished being built by Columbia Rim – the business A.J. and his dad are running) and I just love it.  We have a dishwasher, and clothes washer/dryer.  We have different floors with stairs in between. We have more than double the number of rooms that we were previously living in!

We’d love to have you over for dinner / movies / snacks / visiting.  If we don’t call you soon, then call us.  🙂

P.S. I promise we’ll get pictures soon. I’m working in the ER right now and don’t have any access to them. But soon…

Happy Doctor’s Day!

This past Friday (March 30th) was National Doctors’ Day.  We got some cookies and heart shaped chocolates.  I thought it was just a Children’s Hospital thing, but then I learned that it’s actually a nationally recognized day, always on March 30th.

The history of Doctors’ Day – The first Doctors’ Day observance was March 30, 1933, in Winder, GA. The idea came from Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Cha Almond, and the date was the anniversary of the first use of general anesthetic in surgery. (On March 30, 1842, Dr. Crawford Long of Barrow County, GA, used ether to remove a tumor from a patient’s neck.)

The Barrow County Medical Society Auxiliary proclaimed the day “Doctors’ Day”, which was celebrated by mailing cards to physicians and their wives, and by placing flowers on the graves of deceased doctors, including Dr. Long.

The United States House of Representatives adopted a resolution commemorating Doctors’ Day on March 30, 1958. In 1990, legislation was introduced into the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate to establish a National Doctors’ Day. Following overwhelming approval by the House and Senate, then-President George H. W. Bush signed a resolution designating March 30 as National Doctors’ Day. The first National Doctors’ Day was celebrated in 1991.

New Schedules are Here!

I just got my new block schedule for my second year of residency – it tells me which rotations I’ll do in which order, but I don’t know yet when I’m on call (that will be worked on soon). I’m pretty happy with it… it goes like this:

Block 1 (7/1-7/26): Sports Medicine
Block 2 (7/27-8-23): Team 3 OWL / ACE
Block 3 (8/24-9/20): ED
Block 4 (9/21-10/18): NICU
Block 5 (10/19-11/15): Rheumatology
Block 6 (11/16-12/13): Harborview
Block 7 (12/14-1/10): Harborview
Block 8 (1/11-2/7): Adolescent Medicine
Block 9 (2/8-3/6): IICU
Block 10 (3/7-4/3): Otolaryngology (ENT)
Block 11 (4/4-5/1): Team 2 Senior
Block 12 (5/2-5-29): WWAMI in Port Angeles
Block 13 (5/30-6/30): WWAMI in Port Angeles

And here are some explanations of the rotations:

Sports Medicine, Rheumatology, and Otolaryngology (ENT) are my electives. I’m actually really excited about the ones I got (especially rheumatology – the field that deals with autoimmune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc). The ENT service is a separate residency program and they are actually a surgical subspecialty, so I might have a chance to get into the OR again during that month.

Team 3 OWL is when I am the Overnight Ward Leader for Team 3, which has patients from general medicine, cardiology, and nephrology (kidneys). I work nights for 2 weeks (7pm-7am) and I cover the team with the intern on call. The other two weeks of this block are the ACE – Ambulatory Care Experience at Harborview Medical Center in the outpatient clinics.

ED – that’s the Emergency Department. I’ll be a senior resident in the ED so I’ll either work days (7am-7pm) or nights (7pm-7am). I’ve liked the ED so far and I’m looking forward to this rotation.

NICU – the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (at the University of Washington Medical Center). I’ll be one of the two senior residents working in the NICU this month.

Harborview – pediatric residents from Children’s consult and manage many of the pediatric patients admitted to Harborview. Many times, kids with traumatic injuries will be admitted to Harborview (instead of Children’s) because they are the trauma center for our region and are better equipped to handle things like car crashes and other traumas. I’ll also be working in the outpatient clinics during these two months.

IICU stands for Infant Intensive Care Unit and it is located at Children’s Hospital. It is similar to the NICU, but since no babies are actually born at Children’s, the type of care and conditions of the patients are a little different. We don’t do any post-birth resuscitation (because the babies aren’t there yet) but we get a lot of transfers from all around the region, especially for kids who need neonatal surgeries.

Team 2 Senior is when I’m the daytime senior (7am-7pm) for the month. Team 2 takes care of general medicine patients as well as patients on the endocrinology and craniofacial services.

And, finally, WWAMI. That’s Washington Wyoming Alaska Montana Idaho. Basically, that is the region that is served by Children’s Hospital (and by the UW medical school). During our second year of residency we do two months of an outpatient experience in a location that is somewhat more rural, specifically – it’s far away from the mothership (Children’s Hospital) so you have a lot more decision making and managing to do on your own. You really have to decide if you need that CT scan, and if you can handle managing a patient at the local hospital or if you need to arrange a transfer… I have heard great things about the rotation in general and I’m really looking forward to it. Not to mention that I get to live in Port Angeles for 2 months in the beautiful springtime – how awesome is that??

I-90 Pile-up

We had another snowstorm in our area recently and ended up with a HUGE pile-up on I-90, as you can see in these pictures:

i90-crash2.jpg

i90-crash.jpg

I’ve never seen a crash like this before that I can remember. I can’t even imagine how it must have been to be one of the drivers… especially one in a little car with a semi jack-knifed and skidding toward you!

Love is in the Air

Washington Mutual Center engineers spent more than five hours yesterday afternoon to carefully close window blinds in various parts of the west side of the building to form a giant heart in the downtown Seattle skyline. The 180-foot Valentine was completed shortly after 5pm. The engineers estimated it took more than 1,500 adjustments to the blinds to create the heart.

I was a Snowbunny

SnowBunny

This past weekend I re-discovered the joys and excitement of snowboarding, and I can’t wait to hit the slopes again soon!  I was quite nervous strapping into my bindings and standing in line for the lift… I hadn’t been to the mountain for a couple of years and I wasn’t sure that I’d remember how to do much of anything – not the least of which was remembering how to get off the lift at the top of the mountain.  That’s always been the worst part for me.  But after one fairly successful dismount and an almost-fall-free journey down the hill I was hooked again.  Four trips later my legs were ready for a break, so I sat in the lodge and enjoyed a 50-cent-off decaf mocha (because I answered the trivia question: What did Al Capone’s business card say he did? Answer: Used furniture salesman) while the boys took one more run down the hill.

What a great day!

America’s Top 50 Salaries

I saw this article on MSN.com today and I found it interesting that my job (well, future job, once I’m done with residency) is #11 on this list of top salaries.  After all the moaning and groaning of non-pediatricians telling me I won’t make enough money, here’s some proof that I think I’ll be able to get by.  Not that I did this for the money anyway – everyone already knows that… 🙂

And in case you’re interested, here’s the list of America’s Top 50 Salaries, as reported by careerbuilder.com, who claims to have gotten their information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

1. Surgeons — $177,690

2. Anesthesiologists — $174,240

3. Obstetricians and Gynecologists — $171,810

4. Orthodontists — $163,410

5. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons — $160,660

6. Internists, General — $156,550

7. Psychiatrists — $146,150

8. Prosthodontists — $146,080

9. Family and General Practitioners — $140,370

10. Chief Executives — $139,810

11. Pediatricians, General — $139,230

12. Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers — $135,040

13. Dentists, General — $133,680

14. Podiatrists — $111,250

15. Lawyers — $110,520

16. Air Traffic Controllers — $105,820

17. Engineering Managers — $105,470

18. Computer and Information Systems Managers — $102,360

19. Marketing Managers — $101,990

20. Astronomers — $101,360

21. Natural Sciences Managers — $99,140

22. Sales Managers — $98,510

23. Petroleum Engineers — $97,350

24. Financial Managers — $96,620

25. Law Teachers, Postsecondary — $95,570

26. Optometrists — $95,500

27. General and Operations Managers — $95,470

28. Computer and Information Scientists, Research — $94,030

29. Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates — $91,500

30. Physicists — $91,480

31. Actuaries — $90,760

32. Nuclear Engineers — $90,690

33. Industrial-Organizational Psychologists — $89,980

34. Human Resources Managers — $89,950

35. Pharmacists — $88,650

36. Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents — $87,990

37. Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners — $87,630

38. Computer Hardware Engineers — $87,170

39. Public Relations Managers — $85,820

40. Aerospace Engineers — $85,450

41. Political Scientists — $84,820

42. Physical Scientists — $84,380

43. Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software — $84,310

44. Personal Financial Advisors — $82,970

45. Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary — $82,450

46. Chiropractors — $82,060

47. Industrial Production Managers — $81,960

48. Construction Managers — $81,760

49. Purchasing Managers — $81,440

50. Advertising and Promotions Managers — $81,250

(P.S. I would have highlighted A.J.’s profession as well… but he falls into 5 or 6 of these categories so I didn’t know which to choose!)

Go Tips!

The Everett Silvertips, that is.

A.J. received some tickets to the Everett Silvertips vs. Portland Winterhawks ice hockey game for this past Sunday, and we had such a great time.  In my recent memory, I had only been to one hockey game before (St. Louis Blues) – and that arena was so big and we were so far away… and there was more fighting than playing… and it wasn’t the most engaging sporting event to watch.  But this game was right at my level – the new Everett Events Center was quite nice, the crowd was quite a bit smaller than in St. Louis (but for whatever reason they seemed about 5 times as loud!) and the teams were more focused on playing the game than stripping off their helmets and taking the other guys out.  Of course there was still plenty of checking up against the glass, which is interesting to watch, but the game went on. Overall a very fun time, though I did start to feel bad for the Portland team when Everett was up 4-0, then 5-0, then finally 6-0 at the end of the game.

Oh, and the mini donuts were great too!

Champagne Tap

I have attempted a few lumbar punctures (AKA "spinal taps") during my 6 months as a doctor, but none of them had been successful until just a few short weeks ago.  That was when I got my first champagne tap.

(Champagne Tap: Successfully performing a lumbar puncture so that cerebrospinal fluid is obtained and is not contaminated with blood, thus having the appearance of a champagne color.  Often reserved for a specimen that has zero red cells on microscopic exam, though sometimes used for anything less than 20 reds, so long as the gross appearance is not bloody.)

So I guess mine was pseudo-champagne, since there were 3 red cells on microscopic… but just the fact that it was not grossly bloody (like the previous 3 I had tried) was entirely satisfying.

Happy Birthday To Me!

My birthday was on Friday! 🙂 And I’ve been having a very happy birthday week of celebrations with friends and family. I love this time of year… and I love my birthday… and I love that I still have so much fun with my birthday and that it makes me smile.

Koala Brothers Birthday