February 15th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Humor, True Stories
Tags: Humor, Personal, Quinoa, Steve Zlotkus
2 Comments »
Every once in a while I like to embarrass my husband on my blog, not just because it’s the sweetest form of revenge, but because this is a blog after all – and it’s supposed to drift into the personal realm occasionally, just to keep it interesting.
Tonight’s pre-dinner conversation was classic. I thought I’d share it with you all…
Husband: Should I make rice to go along with the salmon?
Dr. Val: No, white rice is boring. Let’s try something more interesting. Like quinoa. We have some in the pantry.
Husband: I don’t like quinoa.
Dr. Val: Why not? It’s delicious.
Husband: No it’s not. It doesn’t taste right.
Dr. Val: What do you mean? What do you think it tastes like?
Husband: It tastes like…
Dr. Val: Like???
Husband: Like something I don’t want to eat.
February 12th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, True Stories
Tags: Amputees, Inactivity, Metro, Obesity, Physical Medicine And Rehabilitation, Shutting Down, Walter Reed, Wounded Warrior, WRAMC
10 Comments »
I volunteer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) a half-day per week. I’m inspired by the soldiers in the occupational and physical therapy center, and am continually amazed by their abilities. The other day I watched a soldier with an artificial leg climb a rock wall better than I ever could, and marveled at a man who had both legs amputated above the knee – he was ambulating almost without a limp, and with the help of a straight cane alone.
As I watched these wounded warriors learning how to maximize their functional abilities – I overheard a staff member explain the reason why the Walter Reed hospital building is closing in 2011.
Apparently WRAMC is built on land owned by the District of Columbia. In an effort to subsidize the over-budget subway system, the city purposefully disallowed sufficient parking spaces to be built on the WRAMC site. The idea was to force staff to take the subway to WRAMC. The closest subway is a 20 minute walk from the hospital.
In addition to the limited parking, DC imposes a height restriction on all buildings in the district – they cannot be taller than the Washington monument. Therefore as Walter Reed grew and expanded, they could not add any floors to the hospital, but had to construct additional buildings on campus.
And so, in about three years time, Walter Reed will shut down, moving their remaining staff to the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland where there is plenty of parking and no building height restrictions.
I’m not sure what the total cost of moving the army hospital to the navy center will be, but I’m guessing in the hundreds of millions. How much did the staff complaints about not wanting to walk to work play into all of this? I don’t know, but I’ve seen them drive in as early as 5:30 am to get one of the few parking spots. This attitude is consistent with Americans’ general unwillingness to adopt an active lifestyle, and it’s costing us all so much more than we realize.
It’s possible that laziness dealt the final blow to Walter Reed: a facility created to get people active again after war injuries.
How Ironic.
February 4th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, True Stories
Tags: Calling Someone Doctor, David Kroll, Doctor, Dr. Val Jones, Humor, M.D., Personal, Ph.D., Physician, What Does The Title Doctor Mean, What Is A Doctor, What's In A Name
2 Comments »
My friend and fellow blogger David Kroll just wrote an interesting post about the use of “doctor” as a title for a wide range of expertise, including medical. The discussion reminded me of the usual misunderstandings associated with my title…
Typical Val conversation with lay strangers:
Dr. Val: “Hello, I’m Dr. Jones…”
Person: “Oh, hi Dr. Jones. What kind of doctor are you?”
Dr. Val: “A medical doctor.”
Person: “Oh, so you’re like, a pediatrician?”
Dr. Val: “No, my specialty is rehabilitation medicine.”
Person: “Oh, my uncle has a drug problem. He’s been in and out of rehab for years. I’m so glad that there are people like you willing to help addicts.”
Dr. Val: “Uh… Well, actually my specialty is focused on physical rehabilitation – like patients with spinal cord injuries, amputations, strokes, car accidents, etc…”
Person: “Oh, so you’re a physical therapist?”
Dr. Val: “No, I’m a physician. But I work closely with physical therapists.”
Person: “So you’re a REAL doctor?”
Dr. Val: “Yes, I went to Columbia Medical School…”
Person: “Well, you don’t LOOK like a doctor.” [See example here]
Dr. Val: “Uh… thanks?”
***
Dr. Val: “Mom, why don’t people believe I’m a medical doctor?”
Dr. Val’s Mother: “Well, you picked an oddball specialty, dear.”
Dr. Val: “What’s oddball about helping the disabled population?”
Dr. Val’s Mother: “Well, you know ‘rehabilitation’ usually conjures up ideas of drug rehab.”
Dr. Val: “Yeah, my specialty has the weakest PR in all of medicine. Nobody knows what we do.”
Dr. Val’s Mother: “At least people don’t think you’re a hypnotist.”
Dr. Val: “What?”
Dr. Val’s Mother: “Did I ever tell you about the time I was on an elevator with someone at a Spanish literature convention?”
Dr. Val: “Uh…”
Dr. Val’s Mother: “My tag said ‘Dr. Sonia Jones, member of the American Association of Hispanists.’ A woman in the elevator with me was staring at my name tag and finally blurted: ‘Are you here with the convention?’ And I said, ‘yes.’ And then she responded: ‘Could you hypnotize me too?!'”
February 1st, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor
Tags: Error, Finishes Your Sentance, iPhone, Medical Error, Mistakes, Problem, Text, Text Error, Texting, Wrong Words
4 Comments »
I personally find the word-completion tool kind of annoying on the iPhone – especially as a doc. The software is geared towards choosing the most common word after a few letters, and you can bet that physicians are not typing out common words. Like “emycin” is not “empty” – I’m just sayin’.
A couple of awkward ones recently – my friend was texting me about a tragic and unexpected event and I responded with “Geeze!” which (as I pressed send) turned into “Geese!” That one was hard to explain, and quite insensitive at the time. Err…
Another friend of mine was dealing with a sick kitty at home. She had taken the cat to the vet because she’d stopped eating/going to the litter box. The kitty was diagnosed with an infection and was on the road to recovery, when a couple days later she had her first bowel movement. So my friend decided to text her husband the good news via her iPhone. She typed “the cat went poo,” but alas, the iPhone had the last word. Her husband received this alarming, if not perplexing text message:
“the cat went pop”
Have you had similar iPhone drama? Do share…
January 16th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Friday Funny, Humor
Tags: Caption Contest, Cartoons, Dr. Val Jones, Kerri Morrone Sparling, Kerri Sparling, Medical, Rob Falconer, Winners
5 Comments »
Thanks for the many entries in Better Health’s first cartoon caption contest. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted some of them several days after they’d been submitted (I was too aggressive with my anti-spam efforts). But they were all included in the contest. Our judges really struggled with choosing a winner… so they narrowed it to 2 and made them both winners!
Would you agree that it’s a toss up? Both authors will receive a Better Health t-shirt. I hope it makes them as happy as this guy. Thanks for participating!
Winner #1: Kerri Morrone Sparling “Please sign here and here and then I can write about you on my blog.”
Winner #2: Rob Falconer “Yes, we do normally weigh patients naked, Miss Saggar, but I think we’ll make an exception in your case.”
And just for a bit of trivia – the artist’s (Dr. Val’s) original caption read: “Mrs. Chen’s medical questionnaire was unremarkable except for her fine print at the end of page 3: ‘allergic to geodon.'”
