The boredom of anticipation

So, this is my third day of 24-hour call in the past four. I'm a little bit bleary-eyed, not so much b/c I've been run off my feet, per se, but, I think, b/c of the erratic bouts of sleep. And, I think, there's a component of cabin fever, when you're stuck wandering hospital corridors for that much time in a row. Especially when nothing in particular is going on, and one is sitting around, waiting for disaster to strike...

The Great Wall causes division...

OK, seriously now, what the hell is wrong with Chinese people? I haven't been able to figure it out, frankly. This is truly getting beyond ridiculous...
Compare: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060824.wxchina24/BNStory/International/home
to:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060824.wchinactivist0824/BNStory/International/home

FFT

It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach to you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.
-George Orwell

Rock-a-bye baby

You know, there is something about the non-drug-induced stupor that a good Mennonite bed, fresh country air and cooking, and being gently awoken by the lowing of cattle that lets you go on and on like a Sleeping Beauty....

East or West, left or right?

I think musing on the diversity of the 'faith spectrum' has taken up my thoughts of late. I often wonder how Jesus did it. Besides the fact that He's God and could see in to the heart of man and know what he thinks. And the fact that He's omniscient and omnipotent. And that He's God. I think if I had X-ray vision like that, instead of seeing life in all its glorious messiness, it might just be incredibly despairing. But I digress.
Where are our lines drawn? Is it right to draw them? Is that Biblical? Certainly, lines drawn in indelible ink cannot be so. However, lines in the sand, that shift and change to acquiesce to everyone, in the hopes that each has some of the 'Truth' in them, that also cannot be so. The road is straight and narrow. I don't think it is easy, with paved asphalt and good signage, but I don't think it is also so obscured that anybody and everybody has some sort of toe-hold on it. I sometimes worry that in the West, in our good-hearted desire to love everyone in grace and mercy, we forget that our God is also a God of righteousness and holiness. Do we then become agents of God's wrath on others when we don't clarify and teach others about God? How will we stand in front of Him if we lead others to think that they are merrily skipping down the same road as we?

FFT

When I was in my first year of medical school, one of my relatives approached me with a health problem. In this I know I'm not alone; every medical student has been in a similar position, and it continues after graduation. In my case it was my sister who sought my advice, and I learned from the episode to never give casual medical advice, no matter how harmless it seems.
My sister came to me with a concern about her son. She told me that he went to bed with terrible headaches, headaches so severe he couldn't get to sleep unless his mother was nearby. He would also complain of headaches at other times, like when he was being disciplined or during meals. She told me that she had been to her pediatrician several times, but that each time she was just given reassurance, that the pediatrician didn't think tests were necessary. She asked me a simple question: Do you think anything is going on?
I then did what to me now is unthinkable: I urged her to return to her pediatrician and insist on a CT scan. I said I do think something is going on.
What on earth was I thinking of? I had just finished studying anatomy and metabolism, there were five more units that year to go, I had never touched a kid in a professional manner, I had no pediatric training or even inclination. Even so, I felt qualified to interfere. I probably amplified my sister's anxiety by a factor of ten, and I potentionally compromised the future care that my nephew would receive. My sister would always have a voice in her head telling her something was probably the matter with her child, and that voice would be mine.
Looking back, I recognize that my nephew was just acting out. The pediatrician's advice was wise, and mine foolish, perhaps reprehensible. Later I heard from my sister that she pushed the doctor to order a CT scan and the report came back normal. When she gave me the news, she actually thanked me for my advice. I don't think she knew what I had put her and her son through.
I simply don't do it anymore. I don't offer advice to friends or family - for the reason that, based on the evidence, I am spectacularly bad at it. I feel that if I were to say anything that would contradict what they would hear from their treating physician, then that dissonance would taint any future care they might receive. Well, that's not what my nephew/brother/son, a doctor, said, they might think.
Sometimes my gentle refusal becomes a firm refusal. Some people want an explanation for their symptoms, they feel I'm qualified to give it, and they don't understand when I say no. So they ask again, or they rephrase. To them I say no again and in a different way. I am always careful to advise them to speak to their own physician about such matters.
I know that people make their decisions based on a variety of influences and I don't mean to overstate my own importance. I know that a few casual words would, in most cases, not harm anyone. But primum non nocere is our code and without a physical exam, without followup, without the necessary objectivity, a lot of harm could potentially be done. I could inflict a diagnosis or a prognosis on an acquaintance or a loved one at a party or picnic, oblivious of the consequences and context, and setting up their own physician in the process.
I save my doctoring for the office.
-Dr. Ursus

Life is a highway...

I must say, riding round these roads, the dynamism and change that is inherent in a city that is alive, that breathes, is palpable. That being said, the difficulty fraught in a city this large also leads to homogeneity and urban despair.
Cases in point: have recently gone by a childhood church, and saw that it was completely gone. An overgrown plot, surrounded by chain-link fence, awaiting re-development into a townhouse complex. Sad. Stood clinging to the fence for a while, peering into my imagined church, remembering learning how to use the stairs there and awaiting retreat buses...
Another friend actually has bought a place just steps from where I grew up. Haven't walked by there for years, perhaps even well over a decade. Going by and pointing out where we used to play hopscotch and imagined that we were pirates and pioneers was something...
On the other hand, recently drove from Brampton to Markham along Highway 7. Now, -that- is a loooong pit of despair. Mile after mile of Mr. Subs, Mr. Lubes, Esso stations, HBSC banks, McDonalds and Pizza Pizzas over and over and over and over again, without remittance and without pity... This, I thought, is supposed to be the epitome of civilization? This is what we aspire to achieve? This is supposed to be called 'progress'?
Also was trying to kill a couple of hours the other day, so went with some friends to a nearby mall. We nearly died of boredom (to be fair, none of us had gone there specifically to purchase/consume anything, thus completely defeating the purpose of going to the mall in the first place). Ambling up and down the hexagonal/triangular/oblong-shaped units, the sheer homogeneity of the place was staggering. We could've been in any mall in the city, in any mall in the country, in any mall in the Western world, and we would not have known. Aisle after aisle of clothing and shoes... the palpable pressure of looking good/fashionable/sexy and keeping up with what -they- think we should look like... bah.
But on the third hand, I have been caught up in the middle of a miracle. That's always cool. Watching a church grow, develop, bloom... seeing its brickwork and beams come together for something that is far greater than simply a Sunday building... now that is progress...

FFT

I haven't been able to get this idea out of my head, and have been ruminating on it for weeks... and now with everything else that's going on in the world... though I suspect someone's going to read this and call for jihad on this guy's head...

The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.
-Samuel Huntington

Not for the faint of heart

Is it possible to be racist against ear wax? I mean, I have to deal with a surpringly large amount of it on a weekly basis, and I must say, I am not particularly fond of dealing with certain ethnicities' ear wax... I don't think this is exactly the place to explain exactly -what- is so distasteful about some people's ear wax compared to others, as I think my reasonings would probably turn some readers' stomachs... But what I am particularly wondering: Is racism fundamentally not wanting to associate, or be affiliated with, certain ethnicities or people groups because of certain unchangeable attributes of that group? If so, am I being racist if I don't particularly relish, and in fact, am quite reluctant to, clean out certain people groups' ears?