Dear everyone,
I am writing this at home on Monday morning, since I
arranged to take a few random days off.
Not that I won’t get paged and messaged throughout the day. I went in Saturday (per usual), but I was
greeted with about 10 trays (around 200 slides) from complicated breast cancer
cases. Ugh. The pathologist on call looked
absolutely swamped. There is a big
disconnect between input (which is usually pretty light Monday and Tuesday) and
workforce - - only one pathologist is on staff on Saturday, which is often the
heaviest day of the week. I have been
advocating for two people to come in on the weekend, with days off on Monday or
Tuesday for months now. Soon it won’t be
my problem anymore! Of course, the situation is not helped by the unfilled
positions of histotechs (the people who make the slides) at the main
laboratory. I think there are 5-7 empty
slots there. So, if techs decide not to
come in at the end of the week, the work really builds up. The laboratory has caused this problem over
the years of insufficient pay, and too much work, but we end up having to
shoulder some of the burden.
At least, it looks I will finally get access to the new
hospital information system (EPIC) this week.
We used EPIC at Loyola, and it is definitely superior to the hodge-podge
of what we have now. Part of the problem
is Advocate Aurora’s expansion over the last 15 years, and trying to absorb
different hospital ITs, but also their attempt to use cheaper solutions. My problem now is that I get specimens from
Wisconsin (already on EPIC), but I can’t access any patient information, since
it is all on EPIC, and it can be a big hassle to find a clinician who knows
something about the patient to have them fax me information. I have been trying to get this resolved for
about two months now; I hope it will get fixed this week.
Our busy social calendar continues. About two weeks ago I
gave my penultimate brain cutting at Hinsdale Central. I had one of the neurosurgery residents come
with me - - this time a young woman, which I think was good for the high school
students to see - - especially as one of the AP Psychology sections we did our
show-and-tell was almost completely female.
This went pretty well. My
favorite part is always when I pull the brain out of the bucket, and all of the
kids go ‘Ahhh!’ I’ve noticed over the years that I crack the same corny jokes
over and over again. Another good reason
to think about retirement!
It was my birthday last week, and I got a set of sumo
related teacups from Andy.
Cindy got us
two taco
plates. Then, that evening, we went to see Penn and Teller at the
Chicago Theater with Andy and Gail. I
think this is the 3rd or 4th time Cindy and I have seen
them over the last 20-30 years. We
recognized some of the tricks, but others were new. I have an idea for a magic trick that I think
would be easy for them to perform, and fit into their shtick, but I don’t know
how to get it to them. If you are
interested I can send you an outline of the trick.
Cindy travelled to Eugene Oregon over last weekend, leaving
me with Robbie. I cooked delicacies such
as pasta with sardines, and potato-turnip mash. I went out to Roger’s to watch
the 2nd to last Bears debacle (as they had one last night).
This weekend was full of cultural
events. On Saturday we drove out to
Glencoe to eat at Meg’s Café with Roger, Betsy, Andy, Gail, Jim, and Amy. Then all of us except Roger went to see a
play at the Writer’s Theater called the Niceties.
In short, this is about the culture clash between a ‘privileged’ white female
Boomer history professor, and an ‘unprivileged’ African-American female Millennial
political science student (as the play goes on, it becomes clear that we all
have implicit assumptions about each of the actors). Both of the characters are somewhat
detestable – the professor is complacent, complicit, and tone deaf, and the
student is strident, naïve, and narcissistic. The play is set pre-election
2016, when Ferguson and Black Lives Matter where predominant in the news. Of
course, the audience to this play was filled with white Boomers (or
older). By the end of the play I felt
more sympathy for the professor, but I don’t know what Millennials or
minorities would think. I’m sure Barbara Brown would have hated the play.
Then, yesterday Cindy and I went to see Don Giovanni at the lyric.
The female singers were excellent, and the males also very good. I had chills when the Commendatore makes his
entrance! Of course, during the
performance, it was hard not to think about Harvey Weinstein, Brett Kavanaugh, Jeffrey
Epstein, and the carrot-in-chief. We went from one political movement to the
next!
Next letter will be post-Thanksgiving
Love, H.
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