the glory and the horror

I’m up because I had some outstanding medical records stuff to take care of, which is now all taken care of. However, I did want to say that I would like to post more, and I plan to in the future.

For now, I’ll just say that I love being a dad, and that John Eliot is a wonderful son with all sorts of cute and interesting features and mannerisms, some of which have changed and will probably never come back, such as the little sigh he used to make after sneezing. Such is the nature of the a growing and changing baby.

John Eliot and his sheep

There are a few more videos up so far, and more will be coming. Pictures will be making their way up as well once I get a chance to go through some, pick out some good ones and edit them.

Commentary: Why primary care doctors are fed up – CNN.com

A well-written piece. No matter how you cut it, people will follow the money and lifestyle. Until primary care is reimbursed at a reasonable amount compared to your gastroenterologist or anesthesiologist or otolaryngologist, people aren’t going to do it in the numbers truly needed for a good primary care foundation.

That means revamping the reimbursement scheme – don’t pay so much for procedures, and so little for counseling. Limit PCP legal liability. Even procedure-based subspecialists would like to do fewer procedures at times (heard the words straight out of their mouths just last month), since procedures still have risks. They tell the patient they don’t need the procedure, and the patient gets upset, and finds somebody out there who will indulge the patient and do an invasive procedure, driving up costs to the system. At the same time, doing the procedure is “safer” in terms of covering the MD legally, since they can at least say, “Look, here’s the cath/path/pictures to prove there was nothing wrong” when there was no medical indication to do the procedure/imaging in the first place (again, see the above article).

Those 2 simple, yet difficult, changes would make a world of difference.

John Eliot (Chinese middle name) Fung
Born 5 August 2009 at 1106, 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches.
Pictures to come.
See Facebook.

Yes, this room is chilly. Over-air-conditioned, for sure.

So we’re all just hanging out, waiting for the pitocin to kick in a little stronger. They’ve titrated it up a couple of times, and now Kathleen is starting to feel it a bit more. Thankfully, we have all sorts of fun people around right now to keep us all talking, laughing and having a good time. This is easy (so far).

From the Lamaze magazine we got at our childbirth class:

Women’s inner wisdom guides them through birth.

Kathleen pointed out that this statement is true, especially if “inner wisdom” = “uterus.”

All in all, though, we did enjoy our childbirth class. Reminded us of a few things we’ve since forgotten in the last few years, as well as teaching us some quite practical things about breathing techniques, what to pack to bring to the hospital, and so on.

I think we (the wife and myself) forget how medicalized we are. Sitting in that class, we were chuckling to ourselves about things that I don’t think anyone else thought was funny. But some of the videos were just hilarious! Probably filmed in the late 70s/early 80s, judging by the hair, there were people who were willing to be filmed in all sorts of interesting states, including a meconium-stained delivery, and mom who was delivering entirely naked. Not all of it was funny ha-ha, but some of it just seemed absurd in an amusing sort of way. Just thinking back about parts of that class makes me smile.

But for all of you who are expecting, a childbirth class is worth the time and money, especially if it’s a class at the hospital where you will deliver, as it will give you specific information about what to expect at that hospital.

I wasn’t sure this was actually happening, but it was. There was a guy texting while standing at the urinal.

Really? It can’t wait 20 seconds?

This CNN article highlights a continuing question in the realm of medical ethics and philosophy of medicine. The basic question is whether or not parents have complete and inalienable rights to decide what is in their child’s best interest in terms of their health care. In this case, the child has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a very treatable condition, although chemotherapy is never easy.

However, compared to many other malignancies, the prognosis is very good, and the treatment regimens are well-understood with significant data to support current treatment regimens.

But it appears that the family does not believe that pursuing futher allopathic medical treatment (conventional western medicine) is in the child’s best interest, and instead have chosen to pursue other treatment courses, namely a Native American modality (or so says the article).

So does the State (or Society) have a compelling case in “protecting” the child from his parents wishes? Where, if at all, do the parents’ rights to make decisions for the minor end?

This has been debated in the ethics literature in the past, and there are arguments that go back and forth. However, this is the real thing, with a real child’s life and well-being at stake.

Do you invoke the authority of the state and force the family to return the child for treatment?

Kathleen’s sturdy Honda Civic may have met its demise. She was in a car accident this past week (not at all her fault) and someone hit her from behind, causing her to hit the car in front of her, causing that car to hit the car in front of him. So when it was all said and done 4 cars were involved. She’s just fine, but it was a bit scary, especially since this is the car I see:

She’s had this car since high school, and it’s really been a reliable and trusty vehicle. We’ve driven it all over Texas, back up to Wyoming a few times, and generally had great experiences in this car. Even with all that, it only has about 130,000 miles on it. The engine probably still had another 100,000 miles to go! Oh well. We haven’t heard back from the estimator, but when we took it to the body shop, they weren’t optimistic. The other thing I didn’t mention is that there was a pool of blue-green fluid accumulating under the front of the car – radiator fluid!

So if that’s it for little Syzygy, so be it. We will miss her great gas mileage (still getting 30+ mpg on the freeway, 25+ in the city) right up until the last tank.

So I get to go to my first professional meeting later this year, as a presenter no less. Thankfully, the program will subsidize the trip, but the total is probably going to be more than the amount the program will provide. Oh well.

So this conference is in Florida in mid-May. I’ve never been to Florida (except for Key West on the cruise a couple years ago, which doesn’t count). I’ve never been much of a lay out on the beach sort of person, and I’m only going to be there for a few days, since I’m still technically on a rotation at the time. It’ll be nice to see what it’s like, though.