Comical Occurences on the Trail

[EctopicFetus]

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I love Ohare.. It is Miami Intl that drives me nuts. No one there ever travels so the whole place is a clusterfudge! At least in Ohare it is 99% business travelers so you can do what you have to do quickly.

 

[EctopicFetus]

Dont forget the traffic in Chicago.. Yuck!

 

[Jeff698]

Yeah, I hate O'Hare. The only airport that I despise more is Heathrow.

Ditto the suckiness of Heathrow. Especially if you have to be there for 8 hours.

Take care,
Jeff

 

[corpsmanUP]

Yeah, I hate O'Hare. The only airport that I despise more is Heathrow.

As for HALO/HAHO jumps, I would give my left testicle to be able to utilize that in a civilian SAR mission. Actually, I would just like to be able to jump into a rescue period. 👍

I can't think of a reason to jump into a rescue in the civilian world. The reason its done in special operations and in elite ranger and marine units is to access an area where we are unable to get into effectively...its a covert thing, and an access thing. And trust me, anyone who has frozen their ass off in a HAHO will tell you that the hour long decent of which you have little control is mostly about staying warm, oxygenated, and awake. Its one of the least precise methods of entry but it works with the right winds. HALO is way more cool though in my opinion because these guys drop out at nearly 40K feet where even the plane is not seen with the naked eye, and land about as precise as you can imagine on a dime to infiltrate some bad guys who never saw them coming. They literally fly at the speed of gravity for 10 minutes or longer before pulling their shoot at about 1000 feet or less.

 

[basementbeastie]

In one of my interviews, the interviewer and I found ourselves in the very sterile office of a pathologist. Nothing more than a desk, a small attached bathroom, a shelf full of various path journals, and a small sign on his desk stating "interview not to proceed past this point" WTF?!

In the middle of the interview, a scratchy old pathologist entered without a word and walked into the bathroom. Without shutting the door, and in sight of both the interviewer and myself, proceeded to take off his shirt and pants. He stood there fumbling around with his wallet for a couple of minutes in nothing but boxers and a wife-beater (pardon the colloquialism) before redressing in a new set of clothes. We continued the interview as best we could until he left, at which point we both laughed hysterically. My interviewer was very cool, and even made some comment about how all the journals on the wall were probably just dust jackets for a huge, fifty year collection of porn, spouting off the names of 5 or 6 hardcore magazine titles; hustler, jugs, cream, etc... I was both dumbfounded and impressed at the honesty/casualness of the situation. EM docs rule.

AWESOME STORY!!!

 

[DropkickMurphy]

I can't think of a reason to jump into a rescue in the civilian world. The reason its done in special operations and in elite ranger and marine units is to access an area where we are unable to get into effectively...its a covert thing, and an access thing. And trust me, anyone who has frozen their ass off in a HAHO will tell you that the hour long decent of which you have little control is mostly about staying warm, oxygenated, and awake. Its one of the least precise methods of entry but it works with the right winds. HALO is way more cool though in my opinion because these guys drop out at nearly 40K feet where even the plane is not seen with the naked eye, and land about as precise as you can imagine on a dime to infiltrate some bad guys who never saw them coming. They literally fly at the speed of gravity for 10 minutes or longer before pulling their shoot at about 1000 feet or less.

As I said, I'd give my left testicle to have a reason to use it. Ah, a man can dream

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Ditto the suckiness of Heathrow. Especially if you have to be there for 8 hours.

Take care,
Jeff

I spent almost 27 hrs there once. I hate that place.

 

[beanbean]

I spent almost 27 hrs there once. I hate that place.

At least if you get stuck in Heathrow there is the World of Whiskey and prawn sandwiches from Harrods. Gatwick is definitely better, but Stanstead bites if the train is not running and there is an hour queque for the bus....as it was last week. Not fun when you have 3 kids including a 2 yo in tow.

 

[sleepymed]

I have decided to revive this thread.

For those fourth years on the interview trail now, you have to admit that reading this makes you chuckle as you recall identical experiences. Once I have more energy (or at least something funny) i'll try to expand on this thread.

 

[ineedsleep]

I have decided to revive this thread.

For those fourth years on the interview trail now, you have to admit that reading this makes you chuckle as you recall identical experiences. Once I have more energy (or at least something funny) i'll try to expand on this thread.

Good thread.

So far this season I have mastered the multitasking art of getting through security with no checked luggage (I require three plastic cartons for all my crap and can put my shoes on while putting my laptop away). I have probably done a couple airport 5Ks with rolling carry-on trailing behind to make a connection. Breath mints now go in my bag under my seat after an unfortunate 3.5hr flight squished in the window seat while the person in the middle fell asleep with mouth open and bad breath. My breath mints were in the overhead compartment and he wouldn't wake up to let me out to the aisle until we landed.

Four interviews left. I think I'll make it. 🙂

 

[EdEmEr]

Prolouge- Interview #14 and 3rd in 3 days with many hours of driving. Not at a program paticularly high on my list. Exausted and bored of talking about my boring self.....


Alarm goes off at 4:30 AM and I say to myself "Maybe I'll just skip this one"

Fall asleep in the shower, "Maybe I'll just skip this one"

Lose the driving directions to the hospital, "Maybe I'll just skip this one"

Runing late, driving 80mph in a very unfriendly speeding state, "Maybe I'll just skip this one"

Get lost in a decidedly shady town, "Maybe I'll just skip this one"

Find the place and at the front desk, the security guard says he does not have my name on the day's roster. I think to myself that they must have forgot to schedule me for this day.

I walk out to the car laughing like a hyena, doin my victory dance and triumphant that I had just found a way out WITHOUT screwing over the program or looking bad, "Maybe I'll just skip this one"...Call my cousin and tell him the story and he says, "Maybe you should just skip this one"

Then I hear the voice, not the one that says "put on a foil hat so they can't read your thoughts" but the other one. The voice that says "go and double check the med list" or "if you don't know just say you don't know".

This time the voice says: " You have spent four years and 200 thousand dollars to get to this point and you are going to flake because you don't want to be bored for 6 hours.

So I make the call to the coordinator who apologizes for the clerical error and has the security guard let me through. CRAP!! Put on my fakest Joker smile and I go once more into the breach.

Epilogue - Program had the friendliest people in the world, food was great and I think I performed better at this interview than at any other.

Moral: Nothing ventured is nothing gained. (The preceeding pharse is the sole property of Ricky Bobby INC and not to be used without explicit consent.)

 

[mfrederi]

The real fun starts when you are burned out on interviews and just kinda stop caring. Myself and my 2 best friends from med school were all doing EM and scheduled one of our interviews all together. At the preinterview dinner one of my buddies got D-RUNK. In fact, we showed up a little early so decided to hang at a bar for about 15 minutes prior to the dinner. Before the dinner even started he had 3 red bull's and vodka in a period of 10 minutes. Then proceeded to polish off quite a few beers during the dinner. He was very social at the dinner...anyway, on the way home from the dinner we were driving through an area that can only be described as heavily populated with front yard toilet basins and confederate flags when he screamed "I love this place." The next day we dragged ourselves to the interview, my buddy clearly painfully hungover. After deciding we would leave immediately after the last interview and skip the ED tour (like I said, we were burned out) he asks to drive back through the town because in his mind, it was a great place and he thought he might want to live there. We spent about 20 minutes driving through the same dumpy area before he finally gave up on finding "that one awesome neighborhood."

On my last interview which happened to be at a place that I really didn't want to go that I only went to because they paid for lodging and I could drive there, the interviewer asked me the dreaded "what questions do you have for me?" I was so sick of this crap, so I just told him "none" and sat there, waiting for him to say something. We actually ended up talking about how burned out people got with interviewing and I think it actually turned into a pretty good interview.

 

[deleted109597]

I think DFW is the 1st circle of hell.







And no, I'm not telling you why, you just have to look it up.

 

[Orthonut]

So I land at JFK, plane is continuing on to someplace like...Egypt. Anywhoo, we happen to park at the gate next to the gate my connecting flight is taking (woot woot!) I couldn't get a boarding pass at my origin for some reason, so I had to go back out and check in-no problem, plenty of time-3+ hour layover, it's early AM and although the plane is parked at the gate, the ramp personnel aren't even there yet to start loading it up.

Gate agent: Sorry Orthonut, we just don't have the time with your limited layover to go all the way over and get your luggage, we'll have to put it on the next flight

Confused O'nut: but, like, the plane is right next to the plane that I came in on, and the layover is 3:45!

Gate Agent: yeah, we just can't go all that way in that short amount of time, sorry.

Dude, if they're gonna be lazy, just tell me! But don't tell me there isn't time to drive the little cart 100 feet over to the next plane, unload the bags, then drive the 100 feet back to your plane!


Edit: I totally agree with you on DFW McNinja! Although, PDX is pretty sucky too. Last time I was through there there were large signs proclaiming 'Airport of the year two years in a row!' I've been through at all hours of the day and night and literally seen like two of the food places open.

 

[EM2BE]

Not on the interview trail, but my last experience of delays on a plane earned me 1000 miles. At least I got something out of the wait (and I didn't even get inconvenienced because I had a huge layover - plus I just sat there and studied and slept, simultaneously).