Category Archives: The Barbarous Craft
The Feds have landed. Got the call this morning.
“And who is going to answer the three dozen questions I had wanted answered prior to this inquisition?” I said to our hospital’s admin assistant. I’d been waiting for someone to call me to coach me on this.
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine, Dr. H.”
Whereupon I just about busted a nut. I’m tired of being told I’ll do just fine. When I read three pages of questions and answers and understand only about 20% of it, I’m not just fine. Alberto Gonzales-style responses might work if you’re best buds with the prezzy, but I ain’t. I don’t have big doofus friends in high places.
I’ll let you know how it goes. For now, all I can do is memorize what are, to me, meaningless answers to meaningless questions. It’s like Medical Statistics all over again.
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From my 88-year-old male patient today, as I’m cleaning wax from his ears: “You gettin’ any?”
I had just pulled out a corn kernel-sized nugget. “You could say that.”
“No. I mean wax.”
***
And here’s a humongous welcome to the daughter of another waxy patient. You know who you are, you vixen you. (This woman knows my blog better than I do.)
She saw me in my leopard skin undies (on the blog!) and told me today, “My God, you are hot.” Then she called me a “jungle man.” And she said it in front of her husband.
Her mom gets angry at her everytime they come in. Thinks she’s embarrassing herself. Sweetie, if you’re gonna tell me I look hot in leopard skin undies, you go right on embarrassing yourself! This is Balls and Walnuts, fer cryin out loud. Abandon Shame All Ye Who Enter.
D.
Tonight begins our county Health Care District’s “Strategic Planning Retreat,” a 1.5 day trip to bureaucratic Hades held at scenic Tu Tu’ Tun Lodge. (Hmm. I wonder if they’ve lodged me in the room with “King and Fireplace and Outdoor Soaking Tub.”) I expect to understand little and suffer much. I’m there because I’m the Chief of Staff and it’s Expected.
As I think I mentioned when I went to Orlando for the Sleep Disorders meeting, I dislike being away from my family, even for a. short time. I feel rudderless and can’t seem to enjoy much of anything. The hospital would have paid for my family to join me, but Karen and Jake disliked the idea of no computers and no TV. So here they stay.
If I’m going to blog the proceedings, I’ll need to come up with alternative names for everyone. Let’s see . . . there’s Gilbert Huph, the CEO; Goofy, the Ob-Gyn; Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, the Trustees. I’ll have to come up with lots more names before the weekend is over.
(My master plan is that someone will discover what I’m doing, take offense at their nickname, and demand I resign as Chief of Staff. Woot!)
So, no video blogging this weekend, nor the next; we’ll be going to Ashland for a few days. Major woot! Gonna see the Cabaret, too. This will be Jake’s first live theater experience, so I should have plenty to blog.
As for reading material this weekend, I have Summer Devon’s porn erotica on my Blackberry and Cosmo in my luggage. I’ll not want for diversion.
See ya soon.
D.
PS: From Dearest Kate, McSweeney’s Pros and Cons of the Top 20 Presidential Candidates. Worth several smiles 🙂 🙂 🙂
Because it’s late.
Because I’m exhausted.
Because, short of a Cosmo Thirteen (next week! I promise!), these quizi are probably the most popular thirteens I do.
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Ken Russell’s movie Altered States came out in 1980. I saw it the following year at the UC Theater, a repertory moviehouse a stone’s throw from the Berkeley campus. What must have been serious, sensitive stuff most anywhere else in the nation was, for us, high camp. Best part came soon after the protagonist (William Hurt playing a scientist and doing a laughably unconvincing job of it) has, in short order, dropped some hallucinogens, placed himself in a sensory deprivation chamber, and regressed to an ape man of Falwellian paleolithicness.
Hurt’s research associate (Charles Haid), upon discovering Hurt’s miraculous transformation from suave-witty martini-sipping academician to grunting zoo-sleeping feces-flinger, declares — paraphrasing here: “This is the breakthrough of the decade! We have to study this further. I know, we’ll advertise in the Student Union!”
Whereupon all us college kids burst out laughing. To this day, I wonder if the line was intended as comic relief. Kinda like that scene in Terminator II when Linda Hamilton dreams of the Los Angeles skyline dissolving behind a mushroom cloud. How come no one else in the theater was laughing?
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It’s bound to happen. Someone will drift in here from my medical website and assume that I embody all the nastiness contained below, not stopping to realize that I didn’t invent this jargon. With a few exceptions, I don’t even use this jargon.
What do I mean by medical jargon? Not CHF or ASD or IVDA — that stuff is boring. No, I mean the good stuff. Here’s an example from Wikipedia:
Throckmorton sign (USA), also known as the John Thomas sign (UK) – n. used to describe a penis that is visible on xray; tradition dictates that the side that the penis points to will have an abnormal finding.
But what will I do about the folks who breeze in from doctorhoffman.com, unfamiliar with my sense of humor? I know what to do. I’ll confuse them with a flickr photo of a naughty nurse. From Queenie VonSugarPants’ photostream (love the name, Queenie):
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Oy, this is late for a Thirteen. Sorry. I began it last night, worked on it throughout the day, and now (9:38 PM) I’m hoping I’ll get it posted before midnight my time.
I had a three hour committee meeting tonight. THREE. HOURS. And to think I did this because I thought I might generate some fine writing material. NOT.
Well, let’s get started!
I’ll admit to some bias in assembling this list. I’m not interested in male aphrodisiacs — you won’t find any ground-up rhino horn here (and how non-PC does it get, anyway? Poor rhinos!) Male aphrodisiacs are all sympathetic magic anyway. Find something that looks like a penis or testicles, cook it up, and eat it. Or go straight to the real deal.
I know a couple of markets in Silicon Valley which sell bull, um, parts, but the gourmet in me objects. No, thank you.
But when it comes to augmenting the female libido, I confess to a scientific/professional interest as well. How do you manipulate emotions with pharmaceuticals or herbs? With depression, we’re way ahead of the game, but desire seems to be quite a different story.
Follow me below the fold for a glimpse at the not-so-new and exciting market of love.
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French treatment of hysteria, circa 1860.
So much of my work as an ENT is unglamorous — picking noses, digging decades-old wax from people’s ears, draining abscesses. It gets me down sometimes, especially when (as happened last week) a rug monkey coughs in my face and I know I’ll be sick within 48 hours.
Times like this, I need historical perspective.
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Corn Dog asked for a medical quiz thirteen, and since I’ve had sex on the brain recently . . . well, do we really need an explanation for a VD Thirteen? Here we go!
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As some of you might recall, my hospital asked me to serve as Chief of Staff this year. Make no mistake about it, this is a short-straw duty. I tripled my meetings and more than tripled my administrative headaches. And for what? For the ability to say in future years, “That’s okay, folks, I done my time.”
But I really stepped in it by choosing THIS year to be Chief. The Joint Commission is on their way — the Federal watchdogs who aren’t happy unless they can threaten hospitals with closure. Whenever the Feds are in town, hospital administrators swim in their own sweat, doctors run the other way when they see anyone holding a clipboard, and the wards simmer with the noisy popping of spastic sphincters everywhere.
I can’t run away. I’m the effing Chief of Staff. When the Feds show up, I’m supposed to meet with them and answer questions.
Our acting CEO has kindly provided me with a list of probable questions and their answers. I’ve done my best to memorize them, but it’s like learning a soliloquy in a foreign language. The words are meaningless to me. I read the question, I think I understand it, then I read the answer and scratch my head. Does that answer really apply to that question? And what do all these acronyms mean?
I can’t comprehend Administratorese.
This predicament reminded me of an old Gary Larson cartoon which I have shamelessly defaced.
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I thought about nuking this post. Is it too self-centered? But then I thought — when are my posts NOT self-centered? Anyway, feel free to blast me if you like.ÂÂ
Karen’s watching Penn and Teller’s Bullshit — specifically, their episode on obesity. Penn delighted me by targeting one of my pet peeves, the BMI.
The US Government uses the Body Mass Index in its proclamations regarding obesity in America. Here’s a BMI calculator; take a moment to calculate your BMI, then check out the left sidebar to see if you’re overweight or obese.
I’m 5′ 6″, 178 lbs. With a BMI of 28.7, I am (according to the sidebar) overweight, borderline obese. Four years ago, I was 5′ 6″, 178 lbs, and I’ll be the first to admit I was obese. As I’ve opined in the past, a man ought to be able to see his wiener when he goes pee. I couldn’t even see my wiener after sucking in my gut!
I don’t know about you, but I need to see my wiener. I need to have smaller breasts than my wife. It’s all part of the natural order of things.
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