NaBloPoMo Day 17 - I'm an ED Doc

For those of you that at this point still don't know what I do, let me tell you...

I'm an ED doc... not ER, we're not an emergency Room any more, we are an

Emergency Department.  We handle emergencies.  Mhmm... remember that...

I have to admit, I did "grow up" watching, 

"M*A*S*H," "Emergency," "ER" and "Rescue 911."

I was in medical school when "Scrubs" got started.

I was a surgical resident when "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" started.

Very often, I have been asked if it's all like it is on TV.  

And, except for the really good looking people that seem to be everywhere, it kinda is.

Ok, yes, there are some good looking doctors out there, come on... 

but not to the extent that there are on TV...

And, I've never climbed up on a patient and ridden on the gurney with them down the hallway...

Although, I have run down the hallway with a patient, or two, or several...

I've seen the gamut from birth to death.

I've seen the inane and the insane.

And, yes, sometimes we need to take time out for ourselves and do a quick dance...

It beat crying in the stairwell feeling sorry for ourselves...

and, yes, I've done that too...

So, my blog is about my life, most of the time from outside the ED doors,

although most anyone will tell you they want to hear what happens

inside the ED doors... like my photo... about percocets and a candy bar...

hey, it's all about "customer" satisfaction these days...

NaBloPoMo Day 1 - Favorite Quote

Well, it's time for the annual NaBloPoMo aka National Blog Posting Month.  Yes, another year has passed, and it's another year I can't do the NaNoWriMo for various sundry reasons.  But, still it gives the impetus to write a blog post a day for 31 days.

I think writing has a lot to do with discipline.  Good writers have the discipline to sit and just write.  The writing itself is the exercise.  Just putting thoughts on paper and fleshing out a story, or a poem, or a novel... but I digress.

The topic for the first blog post is: favorite quote.

"Listen to the musn'ts, child.  Listen to the don'ts.  Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.  Listen to the never-haves, then listen close to me.  Anything can happen, child, anything can be." - Shel Silverstein.

"The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live! - Peter's Law of the Sociopathic Obsessive - Compulsive

"Dying people lie too.  Wish they'd worked less, been nicer, opened orphanages for kittens.  If you really want to do something, you do it.  You don't save it for a sound bite." - House, M.D.

The first is from high school.  The second is from pre-med, post-baccalaureate studies.  The third is from medical school.  Different times in my life.  Different stations in life.  I went from a dreamer, to an adventurer, to a realist.  Of course, the true realist would appreciate House's "everybody lies" quote, especially when working in the E.D.

I used to collect quotes.  Save them like pennies for a rainy day.  I started in college when I needed a lot of encouragement at times.  Then I really needed them when I was trying to realize my goal of going to med school having been a pretty mediocre student in college.  Needless to say, I kicked butt and made it to med school where I didn't have time for quote collecting, but I did have time to read those saved up quotes and muddle my way through.

I think you need words of encouragement regardless of the source.  Some quotes dictate how you live your life while other help you live it better.  At this point in my life, I think it's more like Morgenstern on "ER" - “Funny how life is so like surgery . . . sometimes you can make that Rocky-Davis (incision for an appendectomy) in that right lower quadrant.. and then there are those days when your bowel ruptures and spills into your peritoneum and all you are left with is intense pain and sepsis . . . oh, brother, my kingdom for a ten-blade when that happens !”