Gridbook Blog turns 50!

The Gridbook Blog is now 50 posts old. It was almost a year and half ago when I began this experiment of putting my private thoughts on-line in the form of essays.

I know that 50 posts isn't usually that big a deal in the blog world, but while I am by no means a prolific blogger, these posts really do capture the best of my heart and mind. It really is amazing to look through the archives and realize that this page has become an anthology all my significant thoughts. I doubt anyone has actually read all 50 posts (other than my wife) but it is good to know that I have these essays out there. The site has sort of become a record of my life's work.

With so many posts I have changed up the Table of Contents. I hope it will make it more easier to browse the essays. Let me know if you think the old table of contents was better.

And since I have so intimately tied my online identity to the type of paper I on which used to keep my journals (when googling the word "gridbook" 4 of the top 5 results go to my sites) I have decided to create a homepage: The Gridbook. It is a place I can link all the things I have on the web.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and linking. I'll stop tooting my own horn now.

An ER doctor

So it is odd that after 3 years of training for primary care I find myself suddenly an Emergency Room doctor. It certainly isn't exactly where I had expected to be. I had thought I might moonlight in an ER part time, but when I didn't find the right primary care practice to join here I decided to try out full-time in the ER.

I'm working in a little ER not too far from Athens. I'm learning a lot and it always keeps me on my toes. It really is a fascinating process taking care of people in an ER setting. I would say I am well trained for the kind of things I see in a small town ER, but the mindset of ER medicine (what could hurt or kill this person in the next 24 hours?) is a fascinating shift in thinking.

I don't expect to do ER forever, but I am enjoying it now. It is an excellent way to keep up my emergency and critical skills. I expect I will eventually find a primary care job. For right now I am keeping up my primary care skills by working in a free clinic here in town.

More news to come...

Pictures from Europe

So I finally got around to putting our best photos from the European Backpacking Adventure on line in a place people can see them.

Here are the albums:

Greece

Italy

Switzerland

France

Spain

We actually didn't take any interesting photos in Portugal. You'll just have to believe that we really went there.

Select a Candidate (or reject them all)

So I found an interesting tool on the internet that asks you to fill out a political questionnaire and then compares your views to the candidates. In some ways this strikes me as informative since it takes out the factor of popularity and personality and just looks at issues.

Click here to take the questionnaire

The problem is that this told me what I already knew: not a single candidate in either party can even come close to representing my politics. I had only 25% agreement with any candidate at all, and my top two candidates with which I even slightly agreed appear to be Sam Brownback and Dennis Kucinich two people on exact opposite sides of the spectrum, both without a snowball's chance in hell of winning. The major candidates of either party faired dismally against my positions.

Am I such an odd person? Or are the national political parties so inbreed with group-think that sets of values that don't fit nicely into Right/Left politics end up ignored all together? Perhaps my own vanity would make me more likely to say the second, but I think I'm not alone in being annoyed with my Republican and Democrat choices. I really don't want any of these people to be president.

It is such miserable list of choices that forced me to vote for Bush twice. (The sad thing is that despite his rather pitiful presidency, he was actually the best choice given the options both years.)

I am seriously thinking about voting for third parties this round. I don't think it would be a wasted vote. It may not win anything this election, but I think that breaking the stranglehold of Republicans and Democrats on this country is in the long run the best way to improve the quagmire of American politics.

In the ER

So I'm writing right now from the Emergency Department. Typically not much down time here, but I have a moment to post. Quite an exciting job to have. It is quite a change of pace since I have previously worked mostly in large hospitals that had lots of doctors and everything one could need. Here I am the lone doc for 24 hours --lots can happen, but it is rarely dull.

I'm still procrastinating about choosing a long-term job. I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself now that I have this medical license. I suppose I'm fluctuating between the concern I'll do nothing worthwhile with it and the fear I'll do too much with it and never see my family and friends.

I'll keep you updated.

Doctoring

So it is interesting that I spent the last decade preparing to be a doctor, and now that I am finally practicing medicine as a licensed MD I have this strange sense of let down. I still like my job and my patients, but I have this constant feeling that it "isn't what I expected," although I'm not exactly sure what it was I expected.

I suppose this isn't uncommon for romantic notions when they collide with reality. I have a great permanent job that has been offered to me. I'm still thinking it over. I wonder if I'm really just stalling because of my hesitancy about practicing medicine in general.

I'm sure this is just a phase I'm going through right now and pretty soon I'll be loving doctoring as much as ever. It is interesting though to realize how phantasmal one's dreams actually are.

Standoff at Covenant

Update on Covenant College Censorship concerns:

The editors of the Bagpipe have chosen to shut it down rather than run a censored student newspaper. You can read about it here. Hats off to the brave editors!

Call or write Covenant and let them know you oppose censorship of student publications.