Category: Observations

Call me cynical

One of the things I remember commenting after September 11th, was “Well, that officially ends airline hijacking”.

Prior to 9/11 it had seemed to generally be in the hostage’s best interests to sit quiet and wait to be released/rescued. The likelihood of getting harmed by cooperating was sufficiently low as to discourage heroics.

After 9/11 that all changed, and my assertion was that anyone who tried to hijack a plane would be assaulted by every able bodied passenger on the plane because the odds had now swung to being “moderate chance of getting hurt attacking the hijacker” vs. “certain death if they kamikaze the plane into something”.

So it seemed that the in convenience and additional billions spent on upgrading airport security was probably a little hollow, because the most effective deterrent was the knowledge that not only would any future hijacking fail, it would probably fail in a manner that involved the passengers beating the hijacker to death in the process.

And now (and I’ve actually seen several stories similar to this one in the past few years) I’ve been proven right (at least in this one instance).

Wierd Signage

The other day on one of the wards I saw a sign that made me do a double take because it seemed so incongruous.

It was attached to a Zip hot water system, and I’ve included a picture of it below, but owing to the poor image quality I’ll also tell you what it said:

1161
Caution: Boiling water. Do not use to wash hands.

I mean seriously!??! would anyone honestly be dumb enough to try and use water out of a zip to wash their hands???

Presumably they must have for the signs to be necessary, but I would think they would have to be a serious contender for a darwin award.

What is a lift?

One of the things I found most disconcerting after the September 11 attacks was a story I heard about an american journalist who went into Afghanistan before the american invasion, and was showing afghani villagers pictures in glossy magazines of the world trade towers collapsing, and asking them what they thought about the attacks. The interesting thing which put many things in perspective, was that there were many villagers who commented that it was sad that so many people had died, but that they had never known that buildings could be built that tall, and additionally a number of them were fascinated by the magazine, having never seen a glossy magazine before in their life.

It created a nice contrast of priorities, when we were so outraged that 5000 people had been killed, but weren’t even aware, let alone concerned, that there were many people in the world who were so poor that they had never known highrises or magazines even existed (although whether this in fact made them very lucky is a matter for debate at another time) (and lets not even begin to get into illiteracy rates).

Now the reason that I was reminded of this story is because the other day I was on the ground floor of the hospital and an old aboriginal lady asked me how to get to one of the medical wards. I told her that it was on the 4th floor, and she asked me if I could take her there. She seemed quite nervous and so I took her up in the lift to the ward, and it was only afterwards that I realised that the probable reason for the request was that prior to coming to the hospital it was quite concievable that she had never been inside or operated a lift before.

I actually remember being told about this situation in some lecture in medical school, but it wasn’t until I experieced it that it hammered home the disparity of development that exists, even over relatively small distances within a supposedly first world country.

If (as I suspect) she had been flown in for treatment from a remote aboriginal community on the Cape or in the gulf, or even from one of the torres straight islands, then she may actually not have seen a building taller than 2 or 3 storeys. I take lifts for granted. For her it may have been a completely new and (at the age of 70-odd) frightening experience.

Setting a good example

Today in a quiet moment in outpatients I had a bit of a wander around the World Health Organisation’s website. As much out of curiosity as anything else I had a look at the Jobs at the WHO section, and made a rather pleasant discovery.

You cannot work for the WHO if you smoke.

It’s stated clearly as one of the terms of employment. Their reasoning is that to have workers who smoke undermines their credibility as a health promoting organisation, ans specifically undermines their smoking cessation campaigns, which are some of their main activities at present.

I liked the idea. People are free to choose to smoke, and organisations are free to choose to not hire those people. Now we just need a few more governments and health departments and hospitals to follow the WHO’s courage and foresight.

The Santa hat

Today, in response to a bet from one of the midwives, I wore a Santa hat to work.

Essentially the bet had been that I wouldn’t do it, and we all know how dangerous it is to bet me (with my well known stubborn and competitive streaks) that I won’t do something. (Just ask my friend James about the $10 challenge, or, on second thoughts, don’t…)

Anyway, the odd thing was how few people questioned, commented, or even appeared to notice the hat.

Big red hat with a pompom on the end. You’d think that would provoke a response or two, but people just seemed to take it in their stride.

Perhaps they just assumed I was really getting into the christmas spirit(s).

Winston Peters = Diplomacy… WTF???

I was watching the news this evening and they were talking about the threatened Coup in Fiji (which is also a concept that seems a bit odd to me. The notion of taking over the country by surprise and seizing power seems to kind of lack something if everyone knows it’s coming weeks ahead of time).

They were talking about the talks run in NZ today to try and avert the crisis, and at the end they showed Winston Peters (subtitled as “New Zealand Foreign Minister”, which is another thing I still haven’t gotten used to) talking about the diplomatic solution that was being worked on. It all seemed incongruous.

Maybe it’s just me but I have a had time associating Winston Peters with the word “Diplomatic”. “Winebox” maybe. “Barfight” certainly, but the idea of Winston as Statesman still seems just a little too much of a stretch for me.

Still, I suppose if he’s getting results I guess we can’t complain. He’s certainly appears to be doing a damn sight more than his Australian counterpart who’s helpful input to date seems to have consisted of alternating between “Australians, don’t go to Fiji” and “Fijians, tut tut tut” (accompanied by the appropriate stern parental finger waggling gestures).

Geographic nomenclature

The other night I was musing with one of the other interns about the names of young patients we had been seeing, and the following question formed in my mind:

Why is it that there are so many kids around today (the parents of whom should have been given a good slapping) with names like Dakota (or Dakoda or Dekoda or…) or Montana, or Dallas?

Additionally why is it that Australian parent see fit to name after American geography, and yet you never see kids named Tasmania, or Adelaide, or Canberra? Canberra’s a nice name for a girl don’t you think?

:-s

Joining the lads

I had my interview for surgical training, and although it probably didn’t go as badly as I currently feel that it did (if you must ask, ask me in a day or two when I’ve had time for some introspection and a few more glasses of whiskey), I did make something of an uncomfortable realisation while I sat in the waiting room: almost all the other applicants that I knew from medical school fell into what I would have called the “Lad” category. They were the guys who played rugby, drank beer, and in many instances if you didn’t know better you would suspect of dragging their knuckles on the ground.

Now the reason I find this disconcerting is that I wonder whether I fall into that category, only I just don’t realise it myself. Is that how other people view me? If they don’t see me that way now, will they begin to view me that way simply by guilt of association?

It’s all a little unnerving really.

My dirty little secret

I think it is fair to say that I have always had a fairly strong aversion to four wheel drive vehicles, and so when Simone had a little accident in her Alfa and the insurance company gave her a Nissan X-Trail as a replacement car, I was a little uneasy.

I have always thought they were too big, too spectacularly environmentally unfreindly in their gas guzzling tendancies, and generally unnecessary (how many soccer mums with 4 wheel drives ever put them into 4 wheel drive mode?). Generally I maintained the view that the kinds of people who had them (in the city at least) were trying to compensate for something (kids, your parents will explain what I mean by this in about a decade..).

So when I was forced to drive one, I discovered that while my above assertions may not be inaccurate, they aren’t the whole story, and there may in fact be something to be said for (particularly recreational) four wheel drives, and those things can generally be summed up in one word: Features.
I loved the Fully electric chairs. I loved the sun roof (although it meant I had to wear my hat so I didn’t get a burned head). I loved the cruise control (it made the drive when we visited Simone’s parents on the Sunshine coast seem soooo easy..). I loved the wide angle side mirrors.

In short I rather enjoyed myself, and felt rather naughty and hipocritical about it all.

So I suppose all I have to do is find a “normal” car which has these features in it, and then I can go back to taking the moral high ground against all the people trying to intimidate me in their 4×4 polution-mobiles.

Unpleasant epiphany

I caught the train out to the airport the other day, at about end of school time in the afternoon, and came to a disconcerting realisation: There were high school students everywhere, and they were so small and young, and I could remember being that young myself, but now… oh crap, I’m probably twice their age. Stoopid adulthood sneaking up on me again.