the glory and the horror

Here is a fun page to get at 0020 while on call.

Nurse (in a thick Indian accent, a la Apu): Doctor, the medical examiner called about one of Dr. M’s patients who passed away.

Me: OK. What patient?

Nurse: Um. I’m not familiar with the patient.

Me: Sure, but who was it?

Nurse: It was the medical examiner.

Me: No, what patient was the medical examiner calling about?

Nurse: Oh, I’m not familiar with the patient.

Me: I mean what is the patient’s name?

Nurse: I don’t know the patient’s name.

Me: So what I can do for you if neither of us know who the medical examiner is calling about?

Nurse: Ok doctor. Let me check on that and call you back.

Me: Ok. Thanks.

I just wanted to highlight a new rule that the Department of Health and Human Services is considering implementing to protect the right of conscience for health care providers.

You can read more about it at The Center Blog, which my friend Isaac contributes to.

I think it is very important that the right of conscience, in general, and specifically in medicine, be preserved in the US. It is better to be free to live according to your conscience, and it would be nice to not have your medical license revoked simply because you are opposed to abortion or some other procedure.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigeria arranges ‘HIV marriages’

I’ve been meaning to comment about this BBC article for several weeks now. I think it is commendable that there are efforts to relieve the pressure/stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, especially in developing countries. However, I think this does not address the underlying issue of HOW those people got HIV in the first place. In some of these cultures, there is a world of underground prostitution, even in conservative Muslim countries/regions.

Additionally, there are many cultures that still condone polygamy, and that is significant as recent studies have shown that one of the mechanisms of significant HIV spread in Africa is polygamy, as opposed to serial promiscuity, which is more common in developed parts of the world. Having so many concurrent partners generally makes HIV easier to transmit to women, especially women of child-bearing age, and that is another aspect of the problem.

I can definitely see what some of these groups are trying to do, but it’s too little, too late, I think. The key remains prevention, and that means keeping people from getting infected in the first place. After all, this “HIV marriage” idea only works when both partners know that they’re infected, and there are still significant barriers to getting tested, much less making it known to others that you’re infected.

Not really, but it’s slowly moving that way. Lots of people still don’t have power, and we had some more friends over for dinner tonight who have no power.

Still lots of debris all over, but most of it is getting cleared from the roads.

Gas wasn’t too bad. I took Kathleen to work EARLY this morning, so I hit a gas station on the way home and filled up my 4Runner for 3.89/gallon for 89 octane, which is really quite good. Better than what my parents are getting in California, for sure. And since it was so early, I didn’t have to wait. Later in that day, the line for that station had to have been hours long.

Also for those looking for gas, chron.com has a great website to share about and find gas stations.

The ER is still quite busy, but we’ve adjusted by having the teams take a few extra admissions. Hopefully, things will slowly decompress themselves over the next few days.

The big question that is more specific to us is what we might do to help UTMB out. At this point, it appears that UTMB is shut down for at least a week, if not longer.

So we were finally out of the hospital late on Sunday morning, and this is what we saw on the way home.

So it looks like the storm itself is over. The sky is actually clearing.

But as you see below, it’s a pretty big mess, just around here. And we didn’t ever lose power last night.

And the bayou is running pretty full.

It’ll probably be a pretty busy night for us, now that the ER is open and EMS is running throughout the city. We heard on the news that 911 calls were up +60% over normal in the last day.

So all in all, it was pretty uneventful for me last night. I got to sleep through most of the night, and didn’t hear a thing in terms of the wind since my air mattress is in a central part of the hospital.

This morning, I got up and took some pictures during the rain, but they didn’t come out so well. But here’s one from just recently, about 20 minutes ago (1020). The rain has let up some, but it’s still really windy, and according to the powers that be, EMS is still not out responding to calls yet, so life is easy here.

So a few shots from just now (I apologize for the poor quality – hard to set up these shots). The lights are still on in downtown Houston at 2315 or so.

And from straight out the ER ambulance bay window. I think you can see the ground is wet, but the wind still isn’t too bad.

So the last few hours have been utterly uneventful. Lots of wind. Just a touch of rain. A few of us were able to get out around 1745 just to see what it was like. Not too bad then.

We’ve played some Catchphrase and poker (Texas Hold’em, of course) since then. Ate some halfway decent hospital food for dinner.

A few people are still rolling into the ER, mostly traumas.
Maybe I’ll get some night shots before the wind gets REAL bad.

So I’ve been hanging out in the hospital since about 0800, and it was humid and calm. About 1320, it looked like this (relatively low-res jpg):

More recently, the wind picked up a little, but still no rain. It looks like this right now.

We’ve watched Casino Royale, and some folks are working on Hot Fuzz right now.