Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

I may be a slightly paranoid conservative, always on the lookout for the vast, left-wing media conspiracy, but recently I have noticed something that I swear I am not making up. While Clinton was president, the news anchors and others in the media seemed to always refer to him as "President Clinton." When Bush was elected, suddenly to me it seemed that he was always refered to as "Mr. Bush", rarely being called "President Bush." I thought maybe I was mis-remembering since he was president for a long time. Now, though, listening to NPR every morning on my way to work, what do I notice? Everyone talking about what "President Obama" is doing - "President Obama" said this in his speech, or "President Obama" wants to reform this particular area. I have yet to notice him being called "Mr. Obama." I have not conducted any kind of scientific study about what presidents are called, but what do you all think? Am I just paranoi...

Our annual resident retreat was this past weekend - filled with lots of good food, games, cool mountain air, and a nice refreshing break from residency. The retreat was at a little resort/inn in Flat Rock, NC. Sunday, a big group of us went to the Biltmore estate. Even though I've lived less than 2 hours from there for most of my life, this was actually the first time I'd ever been. It's always nice to get to hang out with everyone away from work. Inside the green house at Biltmore. The albino peacock that lived at the place we stayed. He looks like he's wearing a wedding dress. Cute goats at Carl Sandburg's home. Biltmore! (Sadly, you are not allowed to take photos inside the house. How lame is that?) It was a little sad to come back and get to work, especially since I worked all day yesterday, then worked the ER until 11pm. Today, I got home from to work to find my sweet husband feverish and laid up on the couch. It gave me a good excuse to try a kind of medicine ...

This month I'm on my cardiology rotation. Mostly this means that I get to watch cardiac stress testing, something I will hopefully one day do in my own clinic. I also get to pal around with the 70-something year old gentleman cardiologist who still works here part time. Every day he shows me several echocardiograms that he has read. My love for ultrasound technology just grows. Watching the way the heart moves as it is beating, watching valves open and close, monitoring the forward and backward flow across valves - it is just stinkin' cool. The mitral valve (which is the valve between the left atrium and the left ventricle) looks like someone with two very large lips singing at the top of their lungs as it opens and closes. The aortic valve has three parts, so when it closes it looks like a Mercedes symbol. I watched them do an echo through someone's esophagus yesterday (something they do to get a better look at the aortic valve and the left atrium) and we could even see t...

I've seen this meme around for a while and thought I'd do it, mostly since I'm post-call, need to put a new post up, but have not the mental capacity right now for creativity. I do not think well post call. Even answering questions I should know the answer to requires mental calisthenics. But I think I can handle making some things bold or italics. 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read (films don't count). 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) Tag somebody if you like 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (on my favorite of all time list.) 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (maybe I should check out the Bronte sisters.) 8 1984 - George Orwell (good and disturbing) 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I read part of The golden compass and really, really disliked it.) 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dicke...

In the medical profession, older doctors, especially during medical school, often ask younger doctors/students questions to try to test their knowledge and make sure they understand important information. This has long been referred to as "pimping." Sometimes, the real purpose of pimping is to embarrass or otherwise demean a student/intern/resident by proving to them their lack of knowledge. Thankfully, that does not happen at my residency program, as all we are interested in here is teaching people to learn in a non-threatening, non-demeaning way. (Have I mentioned how much I love my residency program??) Occasionally, an attending may try to "pimp" you on something non-medicine related. Once in medical school, a surgeon asked me numerous questions about 70s and 80s rock music. I did not fair very well on that quiz. Today, the older cardiologist who works with us on our cardiology rotation pimped me about who St. Valentine was. (really he just asked me if I knew...

We are currently in the middle of a long, bleak, sports winter. It's this long season every year between the end of the baseball season in October, and the beginning of the next baseball season in April. The bleak mid-winter, in which there is virtually no reason to turn on the tv, or check ESPN. Sure, for a little while you can get by watching college football. And yes, I go to the requisite football parties, pretending to be knowledgeable, even though I've never once noticed a penalty before the refs called it. But after the New Years bowl game bonanza, the pickin' get even slimmer. It's even harder to pretend to be interested in the NFL. Thankfully, by January it's already playoff time for the NFL. And the Superbowl is a fun watch despite the fact that there is a football game breaking up the ads. After that, though, the last dim lights of sports interest have extinguished until Spring Training. Golf has started again, but Tiger won't play for a cou...

Last night, just after 10 o'clock, it occurred to me that I hadn't yet fed the dog. This happens occasionally, and thankfully, Lucy is a patient little dog, and doesn't mind eating a late dinner. However, I simultaneously remembered that we had run out of dog food the night before. As in, used the whole bag up and threw it out. Not even any dog food dust left in the bottom. And Aubrey and I had already wound down for the evening, and didn't feel like running out to the store for a late night dog food run. So began Lucy's dream dinner. So Aubrey and I began pondering what to feed the poor dog. Should we make her some scrambled eggs? Toast? Its easy enough to give her table scraps and let her lick plates, but we've never considered having to make a whole meal out of it. Lucy kindly offered to just go through the fridge herself, but we told her just to be patient. We had some leftover chicken and rice in the fridge, but the rice had a bit of a kick to it....

After I finished my first quilt , I was quickly inspired to get started on #2. And somewhere in the middle of the whole quilting process, I abandoned the project, folding it into my craft room closet. About a week or so ago, I decided I couldn't take any more mocking from the folded up fabric and decided to finish it. I'm not sure what took me so long. Although, since it took me about 2 years to finish the first one, 6 months is an improvement. I even took my inaugural post call nap underneath today. I quilted it in circles, to contrast with all the lines and squares in the design of the quilt. And I tried a "self-binding" quilt, where my backing fabric was cut larger and then folded over to make the binding. This worked fairly well, but as usual, my slightly wonky sewing created some issues. Here it is on the back on my couch. I really like the colors and how it matches our living room. And here is my latest baby shower project - to be given away tomorrow. I got th...

1. I had some blood work drawn at the hospital on Thursday. And it took me about 15 minutes to find the outpatient lab. Seriously. And when the lady who checked me in tried to give me directions, I stared at her blankly because I really didn't have any idea where she was talking about. Apparently, there is a whole part of the hospital I didn't even know existed. 2. Even though I've been a resident for 18 months, I had not actually been able to successfully intubate someone. Combining my lack of opportunities to do it with having a hard time when I did resulted in several unsuccessful attempts. Thurday, though, I finally conquered my fears and successfully intubated a patient just prior to surgery. Thinking of my nephew Sam ( read this comment ), I gave myself a little mental review of all the things to do to be successful. And it worked. Woo-hooo. I no longer have to feel inadequate because of my lack of intubations. 3. Every time I watch Food Network, it makes me want to ...

So I went up to class at Erskine yesterday, and lo and behold the fountain was covered in ice! It was beautiful. I'm afraid I didn't get any really great pics, so this will have to do. Note the ice. It's not all palm trees and flip flops down here in SC ya know... there was ice.

My sweet quirky dog only occasionally asks to be let out our back door, being that the best place to be in our house is either right next to us, on a bed, or curled up in a very small space. Every time, without fail , as soon as the glass door slides shut behind her, she immediately turns around and looks at me like I've betrayed her. Then she sits there mournfully looking inside until (I suppose) she remembers why she wanted to go out in the first place. Then she'll trot around the yard, eating grass (no lie), until she's had enough. She also never can decide where to eat a treat. I don't know if it makes her nervous, or if she suspects Jeff and I of wanting to eat her Cheweez, but she'll pace up and down the stairs with the treat in her mouth, looking for just the right spot to eat her snack. Sometimes I think she might have an anxiety disorder.

This has been going around Facebook for a while, and I've been tagged several times, but never wanted to participate. Then Jeff did it, so I thought I should. Here are 25 somewhat random things about me.... (And by the way, 25 is sort of a lot. By the end I was kind of scraping the bottom of the random-info barrel.) 1. Although I'm not grossed out by much, I HATE that sound guys make (I swear - it's only a sound they make) when they're trying to get all the snot out of the back of their throat. 2. I have three brothers, so guess what sound I heard a lot growing up? 3. The other thing that grosses me out is the food particles that float in the sink when you are doing the dishes. Ewww. 4. I don't have much of a southern accent, in spite of living here nearly all my life. It does come out occasionally, though, especially when I'm talking to older people from the South. 5. Even though I've competed in several 5Ks, 10Ks, and a half marathon, I still sometimes he...

This post is a shout out to our nephew Sam. Hi Sam!! Sam is two. The last time Aubrey and I got to visit Sam was back around Thanksgiving. Sam is very smart, and very talkative, and loves balls. Especially his big red ball. Sam is also a very diligent learner. He loved to carry his big red ball around the house and quiz himself... "what color big red ball?" "big red ball red." I've been feeling especially kin unto Sam recently. I've just begun trying to learn German as part of my most recent masters degree. I like to use it regularly, so I stay sharp, but I only know a few words. I can't carry on a conversation yet, so I just walk around the house saying... "Welche farbe roten ball?" "Roten ball ist rot." Keep up the good work Sam! Let's hang out soon!

So we're still not finished messing around with things around here, but it's slowly getting better. I used this great (and free) website to make the header. Then I exported it as a JPEG and uploaded it to flickr . This color scheme generator is awesome to give you the 6 digit code for almost any color imaginable that you can use in the HTML to change colors. Once you find a color you like, it also automatically generates other colors that go along with the one you like. I do still think I'd like to do something different with the background, but we'll see....