Star Trek

I watched a fair amount of Star Trek when I was younger, but as I got older, and as the spinoffs came, I completely lost interest.  I never got into Deep Space 9 or Enterprise or any of the other shows, but I remember enjoying watching some of the original series and I liked the Next Generation series even more.

I would never say I'm a trekkie.  Just enough to know most of the characters and to know that a red-shirt ensign dies on every episode.

So I went in to seeing the movie this evening with a little skepticism.  Yeah, the movie has an 8.4 rating at IMDB, placing it in the top 100 movies of all times, is directed by the man who brought us Mission Impossible 3 and the always entertaining TV show Alias, and yeah, every review I have read says it is amazing, but then so went the hype about Batman Begins, and that, while good, didn't live up (despite an amazing score by my homeboy Hans Zimmer).

This one does.

From the universally outstanding acting performances, to the gripping action from minute 1 until the end, to the special effects to the music, there is very little to critique in this outstanding film.  For the Trekkies, there are lots of hidden jokes (I saw it with my brother who is a big Star Trek fan and he pointed out a lot of them), for the casual fans even there are inside jokes that you will get, and even for those who couldn't care less about Star Trek (like my mother, who shocked me with the revelation that she liked it) the film doesn't leave you behind - at least not completely.  The young actors who have the nigh unto impossible task of portraying cultural icons do a great job of playing the characters in such a way that it seems that you actually are watching these characters in their younger days.

You still have to suspend your disbelief a little bit in some scenes and a lot in others, but if you can join this fantasy world, you will be held spellbound from beginning to end and walk out of the theatre hoping for more sequels.

And that is perhaps the best part about the whole thing: the plot was constructed in such a way that there is a lot of room for more sequels that can be completely and believably independent of the previous Star Trek movies, including the last several train wrecks that they threw at us.

So get off your chair, put your hospital gown and stethoscope down, and head on over to the cinema to enjoy what will hopefully become a sci-fi classic before it leaves the big screen, and see if you laugh as hard as I did at Kirk's line as he is being choked by the Romulan.

2 enthusiastic - and slightly surprised - thumbs up.

Today's "Reason For Your Visit"

When a patient checks in at our ER, they are asked to fill out a half-sheet of paper with name, phone, SSN, birth date, and "reason for your visit".

Whenever I work triage, I write down the interesting ones and have been building up a list.  Some are funny, some embarrassing, and some just tickle my warped sense of humor.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I know that these people are hurting and just want to be seen, but it still makes me shake my head to see some of the things that patients can come up with.

Thus, my regular (as in whenever I feel like it) series, "Reason For Your Visit."  Please keep in mind that spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are copied directly from the original paper.

So let's get to today's Reason For Your Visit:

have Epilepsy have headache

have Epilepsy, have headache, heck, have whatever you want!  I'm just giving it away!

Leaving on a Jet Plane... or a Uhaul.

Life has been interesting of late, with the culmination being a new job offer (actually two, but I could only accept one of them), and a trip down to my new state to get a license and complete the paperwork and look for a house.

That's right, I will soon leave Saint Bigold Hospital and travel to warmer climes, where I will start a new position in a smaller ER in a bigger hospital.  16 beds instead of 25, but the census is the same.  What does that mean?  Hallway beds galore, baby!  I'm not a big fan of hallway beds, but when the weather is great and the new base pay is better than my current overtime pay, I'll deal with a hallway bed or 6.

So that and a move and some sickness running through the family and a recent muscle strain and just being generally busy have kept me from posting as much as I would like.  I still plan on keeping the blog up, but the sparseness of the posts will likely continue for a bit until we get settled in to our new place.  I still have a huge backlog of "reasons for your visit" as every new shift in triage brings in piles of them, so I'll try to post some of those from time to time.

Oh, and in case anyone who cares really cares, I think Adam will win and deserves to win American Idol.  I still hate his over the top stage shows, I continue to almost universally love his studio recordings when he tones it down and just concentrates on singing.  Too bad I can't write in for Anoop, though.

Today's "Reason For Your Visit"

When a patient checks in at our ER, they are asked to fill out a half-sheet of paper with name, phone, SSN, birth date, and "reason for your visit".

Whenever I work triage, I write down the interesting ones and have been building up a list.  Some are funny, some embarrassing, and some just tickle my warped sense of humor.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I know that these people are hurting and just want to be seen, but it still makes me shake my head to see some of the things that patients can come up with.

Thus, my regular (as in whenever I feel like it) series, "Reason For Your Visit."  Please keep in mind that spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are copied directly from the original paper.

So let's get to today's Reason For Your Visit:

employee exspose

Even if we ignore the spelling, it still sounds like a soft core porn title.  (did I just inadvertently increase the traffic to my site?)

Dear Jennifer

I got your email. Do you really read my blog religiously, or are you just saying that so that I will pay more attention to your advertisement?

Sincerely,

Me



Posted from my iPhone.

American Idol

Best quote of the night (by my wife):

"that had to be the single worst note ever sung on American Idol." (referring to Danny's girl's camp scream.

Runner up:

"ouch, he sounds like Grandma with a bad cold." (me, referring to the notes leading up to the fateful scream)

Other notes:

• I still don't like the register he sings in, but man does Adam have amazing voice control.
• I didn't see this thought coming, but I realized after that last duet that it should be an Adam/Allison finale.
• I miss Anoop.


Posted from my iPhone

Today's "Reason For Your Visit"

When a patient checks in at our ER, they are asked to fill out a half-sheet of paper with name, phone, SSN, birth date, and "reason for your visit".

Whenever I work triage, I write down the interesting ones and have been building up a list.  Some are funny, some embarrassing, and some just tickle my warped sense of humor.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I know that these people are hurting and just want to be seen, but it still makes me shake my head to see some of the things that patients can come up with.

Thus, my regular (as in whenever I feel like it) series, "Reason For Your Visit."  Please keep in mind that spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are copied directly from the original paper.

So let's get to today's Reason For Your Visit:

<Doctor> Said Come here NOW.  Turning Blue.

Normally when I see something like "turning blue" on a sign-in form, I can laugh a little and take my time confident in the knowledge that people walking in the front door aren't turning blue, and that when a doc sends someone to the ER POV, it is generally just something that the doctor doesn't feel like dealing with.

Not this time.

Well, actually I suppose he wasn't turning blue so much as he was turning grey.  He was gasping for breath and spitting out mono-syllabic words.  The color was completely gone from his hands and fingers and lips.  In fact, Nancy Pelosi probably had more signs of life than this guy.  I hooked him up to the sat monitor and got low 80s down into the 70s.  This is where my triage ended as I scrambled to get him back to a room and on some oxygen and a heart monitor.  Unfortunately, we were slammed and I never did find out what ended up happening to the guy, though I fear that he may not have made it.

I was left wondering what on earth would possess a doctor to send someone with known respiratory and cardiac issues over to the Emergency Department in a private vehicle.  It boggles my mind to think that you can complete your training to become a doctor and not recognize the need for an ambulance when it is staring you in the face.  Okay, so you said go NOW.  It is important to let the family know how important it is to go the ER immediately and not stop for a latte on the way, but don't you want this guy accompanied by some ACLS-trained medics who can do the 12-lead and put him on oxygen and ausculate for lung sounds and intubate if needed?  All the family can do is panic, which is precisely what they did - and rightly so in this case.

For the sake of this Doctor's patients, I hope that there is something more to the story that I'm not aware of, because otherwise I wonder how he is allowed to practice medicine.