letter april 28

Dear Everyone

I am writing this at the end of the day at work. I need to hang out here for a while yet, because our department is giving their yearly IRAP (Illinois Registry of Pathology) presentations at the Medical Examiners this evening. All of the academic institutions in Chicago rotate yearly through these presentations. Each department selects around eight difficult cases that they have saved up from the preceding year. We cut about 100 slides to send around to different pathologists with a little synopsis of the case. Of course, critical information is often missing, because the point is often more to trick other people than any true didactic exercise. Still, it is good experience for the residents to present 15-minute talks on something.

Meanwhile, I have been busy filling out a variety of forms for my new job. The Illinois credentialing form is about 30 pages long. Luckily, I have digital versions of it from six years ago, so I am able to cut and paste a lot of information in. Still, somewhere I need to document that I have had the MMR vaccine, among other esoteric facts. Dr. Wojcik has yet to announce my departure; she has been waiting to find out if Dr. lee is going to stay at Loyola or not. You may recall that he abruptly resigned from his position as Dean of the medical school two weeks ago. Another abrupt retirement took place in the Cell Biology department (where I have a secondary appointment); Dr Clancy, who had been chair for about 20 years, suddenly stepped down. Meanwhile, there are rumors that the ax is going to fall on a lot of researchers at the cancer center, and I don’t know where else. I do know that when I asked about getting insurance information to send out, I was informed that there was an almost two week backlog due to demand from other physicians.

As Roger already stated in his letter, the big news of the past two weeks was the sudden death of Maynard Russell. My understanding is that he was in the hospital for routine, unrelated surgery when he likely suffered a cardiac arrest. He was otherwise in good health. Except for the circumstances, it was nice to see my other set of first cousins for the first time in years.

Nicola finished her duties as sound effect technician in the radio play at school. There were three stories adapted for radio by Leonard Nimoy: The Lost World, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Canterville Ghost. A lot of the students in the Lost World spoke in fake British accents, and consequently were difficult to understand. The boy who played Montresor in the Poe tale was quite good - - apparently he made a little kid cry on opening night. The Canterville Ghost seemed shortened to Lucas and me. Nicola had a speaking part in a fake commercial, and she made hoof beats, thunder and other vocal effects occur in the Canterville Ghost.

Otherwise, not much is happening beyond the typical sporting activities and hopes that spring will stick around for a bit.

Love H.