I’ve been stuck at the airport gate for hours numerous times waiting for my delayed flight to be cleared for take-off. I see the flight agents typing away at their 1970′s-style computers frantically to rebook stranded travelers. Behind them sits an aging dot-matrix printer churning out airline codes on reams of paper.  Every so often, I hear a muted announcement over the loudspeakers regarding re-routed flights. The passengers, miserable at best, are on their smartphones frantically texting their travel status to friends and family. Some of them sit in clumps near the power outlets to refuel their power-craving gadgets. How could an airport possibly function in such chaos?

In aviation design, there is no room for chance. Every detail serves a purpose. For instance, the design of airport runways required efficiency to the finest detail. Chicago’s Midway Airport is a prime example. Considered the “busiest mile”, the airport roughly consists of a square mile of runways closely surrounded by local businesses. Its longest runway runs approximately 6000-ft, which limits the size of aircraft the airport can handle. A fully fueled Boeing 747 with maximum payload requires a minimum ground speed of 200-mph for a safe take-off, not considering incoming winds. Approximately 13000-ft of runway is needed to achieve this speed. Furthermore, airfields with limited land area implement displaced threshold airstrips.

The area of the runway marked with chevrons is the displaced threshold region. This region indicates that no aircraft is to land directly on that portion of the runway. The designation applies often when noise ordinances or structural buildings prevent a gradual aircraft descent onto the runway from a particular direction. In many cases, the displaced threshold section also offers less structural support than the opposite end of the runway; the ground on which an aircraft touches down must be able to withstand a greater pressure (force / area) than the rollout region.

How the hell does air travel function with airports working the way they do now? It is futile to seek out an explanation. Airports operate the same way our eye clinic does–despite all the mis-scheduled patients, missing charts, absent technicians; all the patients are remarkably cared for at the end of the day.

medicine, misc euphemisms, travel

The further I progress in specializing in medicine, the more I realize how much my daily abilities deteriorate.

Take language, for example. Aside from the broken Spanish I acquire from my Hispanic patients, I rarely invoke English dictum beyond the eighth grade. Our vocabulary in the office is limited to a defined collection of complex medical terms strung together with linking verbs and qualifiers describing outcomes (hemorrhage, blindness, infection, inflammation). Outside of  the office, I’ve struggled to identify common objects like “spoon” and “basket” without using hand gestures.

Is this shift simply a result of natural selection (adaptation on steroids!)? French naturalist Jean Lamarck coined terms like “use” and “disuse” for adaptation spanning generations. Are professionals contributing to their own extinction by being good at their job?

It would be interesting to measure cortical function throughout the course of medical school. This could be followed with serial PET scans to localize metabolic activity in the brain. Areas that fail to sustain signal can be used to correlate with mapped cortical regions. Indeed, a spatial correlation in such an experiment would be damming to future physicians-to-be…

misc euphemisms, humor, life

We all have our travel horror stories. Some of us have missed our flights due to weather or airplane mechanical issues. I’ve read accounts of getting stuck on the tarmack for over 5 hours, or getting rescheduled to a flight after the holiday season.

My travel plans were recently foiled by weather AND the airline industry. Several hours after I had checked into my flight online, I discovered that my flight was canceled. Not via phone or email, but via seatcounter.com. I initially intended to find out whether I could catch an earlier flight, but noticed that my flight was not listed. Subsequently, I verified the cancellation on my Continental Airlines account page.

Canceling a passenger’s flight without notifying them until several hours prior to departure isn’t exactly the most responsible approach. Some of us travel hours to reach an airport. Not everyone has ubiquitous internet access to check on flights. For my return flight, I checked the airline website right before leaving for the airport (I was fifteen minutes away). According to the website, my flight was “on time”. Twenty five minutes later, when I arrived at the departure gate, my flight was 4 hours delayed.

One way to avoid being stuck at the airport is to reschedule your flight prior to arriving at the airport, especially if you know that bad weather is approaching. Airlines have become more amenable to rescheduling trips prior to the delays, and typically waive the hefty rescheduling fees. If you’re not in a rush to reach your destination, you can also volunteer to take a later flight. I’ve seen a number of travelers volunteer their seats on overbooked flights in order to obtain a complementary travel voucher and even first class seats on a subsequent flight. With rising airfare costs, a free travel voucher in exchange for a flight 4 hours later seems quite reasonable.

For tips on obtaining Wifi at the airport, see my previous post.

misc travel

Unmarked taximen line the curb outside of the main hospital hawking their services. Most of them speak only a handful of English words that are most pertinent to obtaining a sale. Whenever I cross the street to enter the hospital, they yell out “Taxi!” to me in a brusque voice, in hopes of securing a sale with me.

I often cross the street several times on a call night to see floor consults between my emergency calls. With no shame, they yell out “Taxi!” and march my direction every single time I approach the cabs. Sometimes I retort in my broken Spanish, “Estoy trabajando todo al noche!”

Then I start to wonder, how come there aren’t any female cab drivers? It’s not like that it’s any different. I see female MTA bus drivers all the time? If you know the answer to that, let me know…

misc misc

Most laypersons and medical personnel have no idea what an indirect ophthalmoscope is. I always get suspicious glances when I’m carrying around my indirect scope in the hospital. It’s black, and looks like a weapon. Ophthalmologists use it to examine the fundus. It provides a light source parallel to our sight, and gives us a stereoscopic view. Last night I got about 5 double-takes when I was walking to the emergency room around 2am. One security guard actually stopped in his tracks and grabbed his gun from his holster.

Bastard. What do people think I’m doing? I’m sure that everyone tries to be particularly alert, but there’s no reason to be paranoid.

misc ophthalmology, rant