George HW Bush

I have to say, I'm irritated by the accusations coming out against George H. W. Bush that he groped women while posing for photos.

It's great that women are more comfortable going public with their sexual assault allegations against rich and powerful men.  That's a major step for women. 

It's different with Bush though. 

First of all, he's 93 years old.  He suffers from vascular Parkinson's and is on medications for that.  The chances that he doesn't suffer from at least some degree of dementia are slim.  He's probably sexually disinhibited.  I see patients like that all the time, and yes, they do sexually inappropriate things sometimes. Lucky for them though, it doesn't land them in the newspaper to be humiliated in front of the whole country.

I really don't think Bush would make a David Cop-a-feel joke if he were all there.  The proof is that even with all these women coming forward about the photo op harassment, nobody has made any accusations about non-demented Bush from years ago.  Now would be a perfect time to do it, but nobody has.  Which makes me think this is new behavior from his dementia.

Is it right that Bush grabbed those women?  No.  Do they have a right to come forward?  Yes, absolutely.  Is it Bush's fault this happened? I don't think so.  Is it somebody's fault?  Yes. Somebody around him who was aware of this behavior should have warned the women or not put him in a situation where this was likely to happen.  I mean, at least if the women were warned, they could be prepared and know it's not meant in a predatory way. 

I guess my point is I feel there's something wrong with tarnishing Bush's reputation because of things he does while demented. Hate him for Desert Storm, don't hate him for this. The finger-pointing should at least be directed at the right people.

Medical slang

From a discharge summary: "Patient went to the ER with sinusitis, and was treated and street'd."

Aside from the fact that I've never used or heard anyone actually use the term "treated and street'd" in real life... honestly, is that really the language you want in a medical document? 

Not that this is the equivalent, but I was reading a story about a doctor who had entered “TTFO" (this apparently means "told to f*ck off") on a patient’s chart. When he was asked about it later, the practitioner said that the initials stood for “to take fluids orally."

Proposal

Me: "Do you have any other questions for me?"

Patient: "Yes. Will you marry me?"

Me: [laughs]

Patient: "I'm sorry.  I put you in an awkward position.  You don't want to marry me, but you don't want to upset me by saying no."

Me: "I'm already married."

It would have been a lot more flattering if the patient weren't ninety years old.  And mostly blind. 

Still, it's nice to know I have options!

Food boredom

I am officially bored of everything I cook.

Worse, my family is bored of it.  I've started bringing home food for my daughter from the hospital cafeteria because she was so bored of everything I made for her.  You know things are bad when the hospital cafeteria is a treat.

Any easy meal ideas?  I have about 20 minutes to make dinner before I turn into a pumpkin.  (Seriously though, I don't cook anything that takes much longer than 20 minutes.)

Antibiotic overuse

I went to med school in a place where Lyme disease was endemic.  So when I was on my Medicine rotation and one of my co-students complained about feeling tired and achy for a few days, our attending immediately said to him, "Get tested for Lyme disease."

The student was reluctant.  He didn't have a rash.  Our student health plan was crappy with a huge deductible, so he would have had to pay for the test out of pocket.  Also, I pointed out (from a personal Lyme scare) that he could get a false negative this early on.

"Well, if you don't want to get the test," the attending said, "I'll write you a prescription for doxycycline and you can just treat it."

And then we saw another attending, who totally agreed with this.

Even years later, I still find this offensive.  The course of treatment for Lyme is 10-21 days of antibiotics.  Would you really give someone up to THREE WEEKS of antibiotics because they were tired and achy a few days?  I took doxycycline and it made me throw up... not something I'd personally be excited to take for weeks for no reason.  And... hello, antibiotic resistance?

I'd like to believe that the attendings were just overtreating because it was a colleague and not something they recommend to all their patients.