I was surveying the kitchen utensil aisle at the local hispano supermercado, and came across a molcajete! One of those volcanic rock mortar and pestles that you see in Latino restaurants to grind up guacamole. This one is the classic shape: three legs with a pig face in the front. The accompanying pestle is called a, “tejolote”. It reminds me of the guacamole appetizer at Mama Mexico. It also looks like the one I saw at Crate & Barrel earlier in the year (see bottom picture). The appeal? Keep using it over the months and years, and the basalt crystals will slowly release an intense flavor that you otherwise wouldn’t get in a wooden or ceramic bowl. And you’ll never be able to get them 100% clean either. These cool little gadgets are also dangerously coarse, sort of like a pumice stone.

Are they worth it? This one at the Mexican store sells for $19.99. The one at C&B goes for $32. I initially thought they were similar, but don’t be fooled! This cute little piggy at the Mexican store feels a lot like concrete. It’s much smoother than the C&B one. It almost looks like they painted a concrete sealant over the mold (like on your garage floor).  While it may not necessarily be that crude, I think I’ll choke up an extra $12 for something that looks a little bit more like volcanic rock. That is, if I ever have the kitchen space to stock a piggy in my cabinets.

misc life

I’m always amazed at the types of food that hospitals serve in their cafeterias. I remember that I once saw a McDonald’s in the basement of one of the teaching hospitals of Baylor. The food court of the Cleveland Clinic (in Cleveland, not to be confused with ones in Abu Dhabi or Florida) also has a McDonald’s, right across from a TexMex stand that serves tasty nachos. Yes, why don’t we serve a 1500 calorie extra value meal to a guy whose family member just had an MI? What a great way to strum up future business in the cath lab!

My current hospital is no different. During my block of night float, I discovered that the cafeteria grill cooked items off menu. Off menu! I liked that. So on the last night of my block, when the only parts of my body that hadn’t been punished were my arteries, I custom ordered a Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwich. Two extra-thick processed slices of white bread painted (yes, painted) with a glistening coat of grease, with FOUR slices of american cheese in the center. Wholesome goodness. They should serve that with a statin.

medicine humor, toon

We have several days of outpatient electives during our rotation blocks for the year. This week I’ve been bouncing around various private ophthalmology offices in the area basically shadowing the attending. For the most part, it’s like being a medical student, because the private offices are usually swamped, and there is little time to discuss cases with the attending while the patient is in the room.

Today I was at a busy retinal office pretty much observing intravitreal injections for diabetic retinopathy and wet AMD. By noontime, we had fallen about 8 patients behind schedule (that’s about 1-1.5hrs). Both the attending and I had realized that I was not getting much education out of this. Thankfully, she dismissed me to go back to the hospital, knowing that keeping me around would delay her schedule even further.

I thanked the attending and walked around the corner (marked on the diagram above).  As I was blowing my nose (I have a lingering cold), the following dialogue took place:

[I blew my nose on a tissue]

Nurse: Ha. You must be picking up at cold going around the office!

Me: Yea, I guess so. (I had never been to this office before)

[Office coordinator, with BMI around 35, storms in]

Coordinator: (Yells at me) No chatting at the nursing station! You are supposed to be with Dr. [attending's name] at all times!

Me: Is there a problem? I am blowing my nose, and I’m about to head out.

Coordinator: Where is Dr. [attending's name]?

Me: She is next door with a patient.

Coordinator: Residents are assigned to be with the doctors at all times!

At that point, I walked out and left.

I have no idea why the office worker was so furious. Firstly, residents are also “doctors”. Secondly, even if she is responsible for arranging resident schedules, she has no right to enforce arbitrary rules upon the residents. How does she benefit from making me sit through another Lucentis injection? Does she get a salary bonus if she’s able to make me follow the attending like a puppy? If I sneezed in the patient exam room, how would that reflect upon the office hygiene practices? Maybe it’s some stupid office wager they have going on…

Otherwise, the only other reason I have for her domineering attitude is that she just got high off this power trip at my expense. L-O-S-E-R.

medicine rant

This video says it all:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xskFo75Wdhs[/youtube]

Ironically, “Outside Hospitals” usually have higher resident salaries, more benefits, a working nursing and phlebotomy staff, and nicer facilities. Must be those caths…

medicine humor, medicine

While it is bad enough that medical residents are mistaken for students, I’ve come to realize that there are many other misinformed people in the community that do not realize what medical training entails. Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a private ophthalmologist’s office, and I chatted with his senior technician for a while (she has been working as an ophthalmic technician for 14yrs):

Technician: So, do you want to be a doctor?

Me: (wearing long white coat with my name embroidered on it): Yes, but I’ve finished medical school already. I am training to become an ophthalmologist.

Technician: So will you be doing surgeries as well?

Me: (getting agitated) Yeah, I chose to become an ophthalmologist because I wanted to perform surgeries.

Technician: How do you even learn to do a cataract surgery? Do you have to go through special training?

[Thought: she needs to be educated.]

At that point, a new patient arrived, and I walked off to examine him.

Later in the afternoon, I had another conversation with her that started with her asking me whether I had applied for ophthalmology training. While I assume that there are people who are bold enough to advertise themselves as future doctors when they were 10, 15, 20, or even 25 years old, it would have been pretentious of me to state that, “I am training to become an ophthalmologist” without having matched for a spot in residency.  This is frustrating indeed. Read more…

medicine medicine