Y'know, I think I may have West Nile with all the bites that I've been getting. One staff was quite horrified with the red polka-dots all over my legs.. almost looked like chicken-pox, they thought... ?jokingly...? It's been awful.. if I don't down at least 50mg of benadryl, I can't sleep through the night...
Other quaint snapshots of living in a small town:
1. There are more than two asian docs here. There are, in fact, at least six who work here at the hospital (plus me). The newest one is a young female surgeon, who, when it was noted that she was moving here a year ago, made the front page headline in the local paper apparently. She was stopped for speeding soon after that, and even though the officer, when stopping her car said, "Good evening, Dr. Huang", still gave her a ticket. Too bad she wasn't driving anywhere remotely towards the hospital...
2. I've already gotten my first "Hello, Doctor!" on the streets of Pembroke by some random passer-by. And, I've only been here three weeks...
3. I've hung out at the local Canadian Legion with the community band...
4. Had my first intact lobster. Had to wrestle it to the ground, as I couldn't for the life of me open the sucker. Gave the head with the green goopy stuff to one of the wives of one of the Chinese docs. Eventually just put it on the table and started whacking at it with that nut-cracker thing... and you guys thought I had a hard time with shrimp at that restaurant... :)
That's about all! Still have yet to encounter a bear. I'm told you can see them from time to time...
Saturday, June 07, 2003
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Pembroke III
OK, well, back to my stunning and amazing adventures... :)
One thing of note: It's amazing at how people know people in small towns. They sit and they chat to each other if they bump into each other in the emergency department, or in the doctor's waiting rooms, instead of studiously avoiding each other's gazes, reading four year old issues of Reader's Digest. There's no such thing as six degrees of separation here. Try more like three. "Oh well, Moira did the flowers for my best friend's cousin's wedding. And boy, she makes a mean apple pie"... that kind of thing.
But, I think, that helps make things a little bit more community-minded. Yesterday afternoon, we went out to ride the "Big Bike" for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, which involves 30 (36?) people all riding this big honking machine that kind of looks like a bicycle... kinda... kind of like a bicycle on steroids, maybe... or maybe like a deformed Tonka truck.. or maybe like an engineering experiment gone wrong... well anyways, we had our little hats made out of coffee filters, windmills and heart-shaped stickers, and our team shirts, and went along our merry little way through town to "It's a Small World after all" and "Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow-polka-dot bikini" and yelling all the way along. That wasn't the scary part. The scary part was that people on the bike were yelling hello to specific people through downtown and vice versa. That was scary.
What the heck? I don't go bicycling through downtown TO (well, I don't like deliberately dying, maybe that has something to do with it), yelling hello to people... on the other hand, why would I? I wouldn't know their name from a hole in the ground... :) On the other hand, I don't think I usually look that ridiculous either... (I hope...)
Hope you're all having a wonderful day!
julia
One thing of note: It's amazing at how people know people in small towns. They sit and they chat to each other if they bump into each other in the emergency department, or in the doctor's waiting rooms, instead of studiously avoiding each other's gazes, reading four year old issues of Reader's Digest. There's no such thing as six degrees of separation here. Try more like three. "Oh well, Moira did the flowers for my best friend's cousin's wedding. And boy, she makes a mean apple pie"... that kind of thing.
But, I think, that helps make things a little bit more community-minded. Yesterday afternoon, we went out to ride the "Big Bike" for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, which involves 30 (36?) people all riding this big honking machine that kind of looks like a bicycle... kinda... kind of like a bicycle on steroids, maybe... or maybe like a deformed Tonka truck.. or maybe like an engineering experiment gone wrong... well anyways, we had our little hats made out of coffee filters, windmills and heart-shaped stickers, and our team shirts, and went along our merry little way through town to "It's a Small World after all" and "Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow-polka-dot bikini" and yelling all the way along. That wasn't the scary part. The scary part was that people on the bike were yelling hello to specific people through downtown and vice versa. That was scary.
What the heck? I don't go bicycling through downtown TO (well, I don't like deliberately dying, maybe that has something to do with it), yelling hello to people... on the other hand, why would I? I wouldn't know their name from a hole in the ground... :) On the other hand, I don't think I usually look that ridiculous either... (I hope...)
Hope you're all having a wonderful day!
julia
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Pembroke II
Well, speaking to some of you, you've come to the realization that, really, I haven't done a heck of a lot up here except for work... on the other hand, in a town whose idea of find dining is East Side Mario's, I'm not fully convinced that there would be much more to do anyways. OK, that's not true. Lots of ppl have boats here, as it sits right on the Ottawa River, and there are ATVs and other semi-outdoor 'sports' (well, and real sports too, however, with my co-ordination skills being what they are, I doubt very much that I'd be up to par with the great A...)
Being very struck by the shortage of docs here (but hey, where isn't there one?). Besides my daily (well, about six-ten times a day) question of "Hey, are you related to Dr. Li? Like maybe his niece or something?", I get a lot more of, "Hey, are you going to come and set up practice here, cause we could really use a few more good doctors...?" That's definitely a problem. Anyways, this isn't going to be a political forum about medicare cause more than half of you don't care... Otherwise, not that much to say... I mean, I have been to TO and Ottawa in the time that I've been up here, so it's not like I've been hanging with the locals... :) (My goodness folks, this has GOT to be the most BORING series ever... snorzzzzzzz) The most exciting thing I've seen, clinically, is a 700-lb person and their 700-lb mother. That's just wrong. They're both in hospital. What a surprise.
OK, this is really pathetic... I'm going to sign off this postcard cause if the best thing I can come up with is a once-upon-a-time circus freaks, then I really have nothing interesting to say...
julia
Being very struck by the shortage of docs here (but hey, where isn't there one?). Besides my daily (well, about six-ten times a day) question of "Hey, are you related to Dr. Li? Like maybe his niece or something?", I get a lot more of, "Hey, are you going to come and set up practice here, cause we could really use a few more good doctors...?" That's definitely a problem. Anyways, this isn't going to be a political forum about medicare cause more than half of you don't care... Otherwise, not that much to say... I mean, I have been to TO and Ottawa in the time that I've been up here, so it's not like I've been hanging with the locals... :) (My goodness folks, this has GOT to be the most BORING series ever... snorzzzzzzz) The most exciting thing I've seen, clinically, is a 700-lb person and their 700-lb mother. That's just wrong. They're both in hospital. What a surprise.
OK, this is really pathetic... I'm going to sign off this postcard cause if the best thing I can come up with is a once-upon-a-time circus freaks, then I really have nothing interesting to say...
julia
Pembroke I
Well hello, and here's yet another (interminable) edition of Julia's exploits in far lands (well, OK, admittedly this is probably the most pathetic series since I didn't even leave the province, but stil...), and I wasn't entirely sure if this counts as Part V, of if Ottawa stories count, or if I even wrote anything whilst in Spain (I don't think I did), cause if so, then I might even be up to Part VII...
At any rate, this time I'm not in that strange of a land... Pembroke ON, really, for a month, on a rural rotation, to encourage the good family doctors of the land to move out to Green Acres so that the specialists don't have to (hey! says the peanut gallery, and then re-considers when they realize that's true har de har har :) ).
And, I'm not that far... just about 150km from Ottawa, which takes me that much further from Toronto, so I guess it's far... (not that it's -that- big of deal to ppl, say, like Tracy :) ) For those of you who are new to this series, welcome! And to those of you who are groaning, "Oh man, why does she still keep me on her friggin' list??", well, too bad. :) Hopefully, I'll be able to regale you with tales of strange customs and exotic peoples... right... sorry, no more Swedish OR stories, no camels, no accordions, no baby offerings, no Stampede stories... nothing like that in this series, I'm afraid... this one is unfortunately completely self indulgent, since I have nothing better to do out here :) So, surprisingly, I'm finding myself in a town of 10,000 ppl. It has a hospital, which is currently undergoing a $36 million re-construction with the works. Family docs do most, if not all, the work here (of course). They just got their first CT scanner, which is great, cause they don't have to send cerebellar stroke pts down to Ottawa noe (well, as long as strokes happen during business hours... they have yet to have the techs to run it full time.. plus it's broken down twice in the 48 hours I've been here... weird...) Other than that, I've seen a couple of cows, and two East Asian docs(!).. one of whom is a Dr. Li... you can imagine how many jokes I've gotten about how I'm probably related to Dr. Li.... :) of course, cause that would be logical...
That's about it for now!
Later! Love you all!
julia
At any rate, this time I'm not in that strange of a land... Pembroke ON, really, for a month, on a rural rotation, to encourage the good family doctors of the land to move out to Green Acres so that the specialists don't have to (hey! says the peanut gallery, and then re-considers when they realize that's true har de har har :) ).
And, I'm not that far... just about 150km from Ottawa, which takes me that much further from Toronto, so I guess it's far... (not that it's -that- big of deal to ppl, say, like Tracy :) ) For those of you who are new to this series, welcome! And to those of you who are groaning, "Oh man, why does she still keep me on her friggin' list??", well, too bad. :) Hopefully, I'll be able to regale you with tales of strange customs and exotic peoples... right... sorry, no more Swedish OR stories, no camels, no accordions, no baby offerings, no Stampede stories... nothing like that in this series, I'm afraid... this one is unfortunately completely self indulgent, since I have nothing better to do out here :) So, surprisingly, I'm finding myself in a town of 10,000 ppl. It has a hospital, which is currently undergoing a $36 million re-construction with the works. Family docs do most, if not all, the work here (of course). They just got their first CT scanner, which is great, cause they don't have to send cerebellar stroke pts down to Ottawa noe (well, as long as strokes happen during business hours... they have yet to have the techs to run it full time.. plus it's broken down twice in the 48 hours I've been here... weird...) Other than that, I've seen a couple of cows, and two East Asian docs(!).. one of whom is a Dr. Li... you can imagine how many jokes I've gotten about how I'm probably related to Dr. Li.... :) of course, cause that would be logical...
That's about it for now!
Later! Love you all!
julia
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