Yes, I’ve become philosophical this week. I spent my spare time this week listening to the audiobook version of Man’s 4th Best Hospital by Samuel Shem who authored the classic hit, viz., The House of God. I mentioned these books in last week’s post.
It’s a struggle thinking we and not I
The we and not the I is something I struggle with. Living alone and basically having anti-social tendencies means I tend to think of the I rather than the we more often than not. I feel awkward in we situations and because of my deafness and tinnitus I’m forever asking people to repeat what they say. I also feel awkward because I’m at a loss when it comes to making small talk. Furthermore, I’m also not familiar with a lot of contemporary language and culture. People today seem to speak in a different language. Mumbling also seems to be the norm amongst many people.
I’ve found out the hard way in some situations that my dark cynical view of life is not welcome. My open blunt and direct sense of humour often smattered with words associated with bodily functions and colourfully accurate descriptions seems to make people shy away.
House of God and Man’s 4th Best Hospital
The House of God was notable for its cynical view of the medical machine in the hospital system in the USA.
There is still an element of cynicism in Man’s 4th Best Hospital, but there is a clear recognition that the Socratic method isn’t the be all and end all of patient-based medical education. Rather than peppering a junior with questions hoping to catch them out unaware, in Man’s 4th Best Hospital, the Fat Man and Roy with their colleagues try to lift up the juniors. They applaud the value of nurse practitioners and physicians assistants in the system, as well as the value of psychological and psychiatric medicine.
Much of the focus in Man’s 4th Best Hospital is
- selflessness,
- thinking of others,
- being in the present,
- listening to patients,
- the we and not the I,
- turning off screens,
- connection heals,
- it’s not just what we do now but what we do next,
- put the human back in medicine, and
- stick together no matter what.
If you want to read these books I’ve added some Amazon links. I have no affiliation with Amazon. I’m doing this in case you want to buy and read the books.
The Random Yummy
In an effort to thwart the Facebook ban on my recipe food blog Yummy Lummy, I’ve started another blog named the Random Yummy. We’ll see how long it takes before Facebook bans it too.
This time I’ve gone with a free service from WordPress.com rather than doing a self-hosted site. The effort will be small and will focus on random food stuff rather than recipes as such.
Check out the post I wrote about making Vegemite Spam. I hope you like it.
Melbourne
I spent a night in Melbourne this week. Here are some photographs (in a clickable gallery) of the view I had as well as a couple of meals I enjoyed.
What have I watched this week?
Stargate SG-1
I’m now into season six. Major Samantha Carter’s character is really growing. I think I have a fan crush on Amanda Tapping. Her character is just so good. Scientist and warfighter wrapped up in one person.
Colonel Jack O’Neill the commanding officer of SG-1 has been written so well. I love the humour in his character and the fact that the CO doesn’t have to be the smartest tool in the shed and still command respect and loyalty.
I’m now at the part of SG-1 where Dr Daniel Jackson the archeologist has ascended to a higher plane.
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
In the Pale Moonlight
It’s no surprise that Sisko sells his soul to form an alliance with the Romulans. It’s really Garak who is the hero of this episode (season 6 episode 19). He had foresight and guile and gotten beaten around the head by the thug Sisko for his trouble.
What have I listened to this week?
Man’s 4th Best Hospital
It started slowly and at first I thought, oh no, it’s another Mount Misery dud. It really picked up and was hard to stop listening. The ending though was a little less than compelling. I would have liked a cleaner more decisive ending.
The end is tragic though and full of sadness. I cried.
The Medical Republic Podcast
Cannabis: from paranoia to panacea
This week’s show is about medical cannabis and the situation we have in Australia with the availability and supply of medical cannabis to patients.
With more experience, I hope the system put in place to help patients will evolve into something that will help ease pain, suffering, and many symptoms associated with chronic and debilitating illness.
Meet the Microbiologist
This week Julie Wolf from the American Society for Microbiology interviews Jason Bartz who is an expert in prions and prion diseases in mammals. What I really enjoyed about this interview was the clarity it brought to better understanding the biology of prions and how these replicating proteins can be better characterised.
It was interesting to listen to Jason describe the two communicable variations of prion disease, viz., Chronic Wasting Disease of Cervids and Scrapie in sheep and goats. The speculation about the role of ingestion and inhalation in transmission and what this may mean for meat consumption of these as well as co-mingled mammal populations.
I wonder if anyone is looking for CWD in the Australian deer population which are not native here. I wonder if there are implications for Australia’s marsupial species.
This was a particularly apt show this week because I’ve been thinking about Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) and infection control related matters.
The thought of prion disease brings back memories of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the need to defer blood donors who had spent time in the UK during the period of so-called ”Mad Cow Disease”. This fiasco came about because some smart arse thought it would be good to grind up the remains of dead cows and feed the product to cows as a protein rich food source. It was enhanced cannibalism. Noting the history of another prion disease, viz., kuru which occurred in Fore people of Papua New Guinea who practised cannibalism.
What have I eaten and photographed this week?
Photographs
This is a gallery of photographs. Click on one image and scroll through the rest of them.
Yummy Lummy this week
Click on the thumbnail and it will lead to the recipe post.
The cookbook
Zilch
Final thoughts
- How much time do you focus on the we rather than the I?
- Would the fear of disease stop you from eating another human in desperate times?
- Have you tried cannabis for medical reasons?
I like using @SkylumSoftware Luminar 4 for photo editing
— Gaz 🖖 (@garydlum) August 15, 2019
Check out the product https://t.co/HnxMkLpw1J
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Interesting post, Gary.
I’m now learning to say I again, as I have been better to say we.
I would prefer to eat vegetables to meat, so not a question for me.
Yes, I use CBD oil and have used it since the spring this year. I use it of several reasons, but mostly against pain and because of its anti-inflammation functions.
I come to think, that you tell here about your deafness. Don’t you have a hearing aid with those challenges? It is worth it and you will avoid not to hear anything, when people try to tell you something. In my family, we have and have had several people with same challenge and it has helped all of them.
I’ve thought about hearing aids, but for my problem of background noise being heard louder than speech and the lack of hearing consonants, it will take the really expensive hearing aids. They are >$10,000.
They sounds expensive in AU. Maybe you should go to Europe and buy them. My Mom bought some of the good ones for about 7-10 years ago and I think, she paid max. 2.000 Euro. I think, they were more cheap, but I’m not sure. If you get some, as can be controlled by internet, then you can manage the maintenance from home or maybe use a local shop with same brand. That will be more cheap for you. You are traveling a lot, I know, so maybe you could order an appointment in front of your travel by help from internet.
Thanks, Irene. I’ll look into it.
Good luck, Gary.
Thank you Irene.