michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: What's So: Thanksgiving 2012
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2012/11/whats-so-thanksgiving-2012.html
Monday, November 26, 2012. What's So: Thanksgiving 2012. Creation requires vision, but it also requires an accurate appraisal of what’s so in the present. I’m powerless to create change without accepting the conditions from which creation starts. For example, if I want to restore a hurricane-damaged house, it’s important to have a vision of the restored result. So, too, in my life. I have clear ideas about how I’d like things to be. Yet the path to the life I want begins with the life I have. My new fami...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: The Eye Man Cometh
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-eye-man-cometh.html
Sunday, January 27, 2013. The Eye Man Cometh. 8220;Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick…”. This week I’ll pay a man to stick a sharp knife in my only functional eye. He’ll destroy the lens through which I’ve watched my life for 68 years and leave an oddly-shaped bit of clear plastic in its place. He’ll do all this under topical anesthesia while I’m wide awake. This lens, I expect, will restore my once-dependable distance vision. I groped my way to the meeting, guessing at familiar sights, fee...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: August 2010
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
Friday, August 20, 2010. Customer delight equals medical quality. Right? The larger health system of which my hospital is a part has for several years exhorted its employees to remember AIDET – perhaps the most awkward acronym every devised in service of a noble purpose. AIDET stands for Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation, and Thanks, or something close. The acronym is meaningless, the construction isn’t parallel, and the actions are listed out of order to create the acronym. Not entirely....
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: OH SAY, CAN YOU SEE...?
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2013/01/oh-say-can-you-see.html
Thursday, January 31, 2013. OH SAY, CAN YOU SEE? Today was the day for my cataract removal – technically, a phacoemulsification and insertion of intraocular lens in my left eye. That’s my only working eye, about which more later. If you haven’t thought about how that’s done, here’s a nice short video: http:/ www.youtube.com/watch? The intraocular lens is a piece of optical plastic slipped into the cavity created by the absent natural lens, held in place by springy arms that extend out to the sides. An an...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: May 2011
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html
Monday, May 16, 2011. Nutrition Science: An Oxymoron? I used to think that only a fool could experience much confusion about food and nutrition. When I went to medical school, back in the days of leeches and wooden needles, nutrition was briefly covered in the biochemistry course. Beyond that, it was pretty much, “Mmm, food good. Eat food.” And, of course, “Fat people have no impulse control.”. I’ve spent my life thinking that the equation was pretty simple. Perhaps all calories are not equal. The once-h...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: March 2013
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html
Monday, March 18, 2013. If Treatment Is Expensive, Is It Therefore Effective? Our hospital CEO mentioned at an administrative meeting the other day that an anesthesiologist who owns a pain clinic on the mainland is aggressively pursuing an appointment with her. He wants to talk, she thinks, about providing some service on our island. She says that he has an impressive website and 20 employees. We Googled the website at the meeting. She’ll meet with him soon, I imagine. What can he offer? In particular, f...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: September 2010
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html
Wednesday, September 1, 2010. Everybody in the operating room where I work has been having fun for the past several weeks with a short cartoon film depicting an interaction between an orthopedic resident and an anesthesia resident. At the end of the movie, there's a short text notice that says something like "If you can type, you can make a movie." It took a while for this to sink in. I can type. I can make a movie. Wow, was that fun! Note added 3/5/11: As a condition of our divorce agreement reached yes...
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: December 2010
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.html
Saturday, December 25, 2010. Nine weeks, 44 pounds. Nine weeks ago I weighed forty-four pounds more than I do now. I’m peeling off almost five pounds a week. Or even any particular fortitude on my part. And therein lies a story. I had all but given up. I seemed to be helplessly ballooning several pounds every year, and had been doing so for forty years. The rest of the time has been marked by slow and steady expansion of my girth. Clothes from a few years ago never fit. Pants with a 42 waist were snug.
michaelplumer.blogspot.com
Playing Doctor: Fat is Not a Character Flaw
http://michaelplumer.blogspot.com/2011/05/fat-is-not-character-flaw.html
Sunday, May 15, 2011. Fat is Not a Character Flaw. My sister and I have spent our adult lives getting fatter. Neither of us wanted to do that, yet over the years we’ve accumulated enough extra fat between us to build a couple more people. Now I’ve lost about 70 pounds on a healthy eating program, and I feel good. She and her husband have been eating on this same program, and have each lost substantial weight, enough that people are noticing. I’m now certified as a practitioner for that program....Mostly ...
