Stumped about what to do for residency? Here’s the ultimate guide for career choice. Alfred Padilla, one of the endocrinologists up at Greenwich, graciously sent me his Venn diagram. It doesn’t include all the specialties, but you can extrapolate from the data:

medicine euphemisms, medicine

Even if you haven’t travelled by air recently, you probably have heard about airlines cutting operation costs by reducing services. Obviously, domestic travel has been hit the hardest. On United Economy Class, beverage service no longer includes any 0.05oz bag of pretzels to accompany the drinks (for flights < 2hrs). United has also opened up a dozen or so “Economy Plus” seats on their 737′s that offer an extra 5 inches of legroom. Their website states that these seats are available for one-time upgrades starting at $14. No bad right? Bad indeed. The $14 only gets you the seat on ultra-short haul flights only (Chicago <-> Detroit). On my flight from Chicago -> Philadelphia the other day, the upgrade was available for $40. Indeed, it was such a hot item that it seemed like the only takers were those willing to shove through the flight attendants barracading the division between economy and “economy plus” class. Read more…

misc rant, travel

Nice pretty icy trees

I visited my family in Kentucky after I had heard what the hellish snowstorms brought over the last few months. Before all the ice melted, the streets were lined with a picturesque amount of snow.  Afterward, the streets look like a disaster zone. There are still branches strewn about the neighborhood. Ironically, the streets and homes in the area don’t look as devastated when compared to the post-tornado carnage we had two years ago.  Read more…

misc life

I saw this electronic billboard at the Philadelphia Airport:

The demise of E. coli

We will never learn. E. coli will always get the last laugh. And for the record, E. coli is also a “native” of our colon. He makes Vitamin K for us. His nemesis C. diff is just waiting for him to die so that we can be blessed with foul-smelling, runny stools 10+ times a day (pseudomembranous colitis).

medicine euphemisms, life

While inpatient medicine work hours isn’t as long as surgical hours, I’m still beat at the end of the day. I’m going into my black weekend tomorrow (working on Saturday overnight until Sunday) after having had 4 weeks of surgical floors followed by 8 straight weeks of inpatient medicine.  So instead of resting up, I spent the evening doodling.

snooze time

It’s been progressively harder for me to wake up every morning.  Can’t wait for vacation to roll around…

misc life, toon