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I was working out on my home gym when I got a call this weekend from a well known university's new oncology fellow about a patient I had reviewed the peripheral blood on the day before. I had prodded my new oncologist (from a different well known university) into transferring this patient because I knew if this patient died, the confidence of my new oncologist would be shot.
The fellow wanted the slides. The fellow called me once, then twice, then my secretary told me the next day the fellow had called 5 times! Wow.
So LADOC had a plan, I would get in my car (with no traffic due to the Rona) and drive the slides myself to the University! A LADOC roadtrip was born on a random weekday. Excited I gassed up my sports car and Vrooooommm took off!
I arrived to a bright beautiful campus and spotted an odd map. It was a map of the campus that appeared to show areas safe or okay to walk and other areas that were no go. A sense of foreboding gripped me but I continued on to the medical center complex....
I will leave unnamed the university unnamed (but as a clue it rhymes with "Hanford").
After rolling into surgical pathology and seeing basically empty offices like a department that was now manned by ghost residents, I found a small group of office staff all crowded in a small side accessioning room.
I thought I was doing some heroic intervention by driving and hand delivering this case to them! I didnt expect a parade and fireworks but....they seemed to act like I had handed them a steaming turd infected with COVID. As they starred at it in total confusion, I told them it was a "bone marrow case with slides"...I shook my head. I actually felt ashamed for them. Had the Rona literally just sapped the life from them like the poor gelflings in the Dark Crystal?
I immediately called the zealous gunner oncology fellow there that I personally dropped off the slides. I was worried the pathology office people in state of Rona induced confusion would just toss the slides into the garbage or something. The oncology fellow was happy 🙂
I wandered back outside through the 20 layers of security and stepping out into the crisp air, I stared back at this unnamed university and laughed, which I must have done out loud because a Chinese lady sitting on the bench asked what I was laughing at. I told her it had never ceased to amuse me that the outside of the hospital at a major university that I will leave unnamed was covered in swastikas. She looked back and seeing what I was talking about starting laughed too.
I thought of Jojo Rabbit and the quote "I have to be a Nazi, I love swastikas!"
I will also add that this swastika covered building had trained some of the greatest physicians of all time. But still I chuckled as a went back to my car.
Getting a tad sleepy I drove over to a great French bakery I had visited before there. I got a coffee and a croissant. Both were incredible! As I walked out of the cafe, my cell phone rang so I sat down by the curb and took the call while I sipped my delicious french cafe au lait and munched on a filled croissant. It was my facility's ICU chief and they wanted to pull a patient off a ventilator. I stared off into the sky wondering why I had been chosen as the arbiter of life and death for this patient when the French cafe owner ran out waiving his hands at me....
Monsieur! Monsieur!! Run! He shouted at me.
Now I was confused, confused to the point of I thought I had woken up this morning and instead of eating a vitamin C gummy or 2 had accidentally taken 20mg of THC. Perhaps I was in some drug induced hallucination so real that the coffee and croissant tasted exactly what my imagination had expected?
A patrol car circled the parking lot coming towards me. The French cafe owner told me a customer had seen me sitting taking my call, eating my croissant and had called law enforcement because I was eating outside a cafe, apparently now a crime here!!!
This had to be a drug induced dream...I lept up and ran to my car, dropping my tasty croissant on the dirty street. I cursed the sky shaking my fist angrily and upon seeing this, the patrol car decided they best not approach me and drove away.
I got into my car.. What a day. What a crappy world we live in now.
I looked on my calendar, this Friday the movie Songbird was due out. I smiled as started my car for the drive home.
The fellow wanted the slides. The fellow called me once, then twice, then my secretary told me the next day the fellow had called 5 times! Wow.
So LADOC had a plan, I would get in my car (with no traffic due to the Rona) and drive the slides myself to the University! A LADOC roadtrip was born on a random weekday. Excited I gassed up my sports car and Vrooooommm took off!
I arrived to a bright beautiful campus and spotted an odd map. It was a map of the campus that appeared to show areas safe or okay to walk and other areas that were no go. A sense of foreboding gripped me but I continued on to the medical center complex....
I will leave unnamed the university unnamed (but as a clue it rhymes with "Hanford").
After rolling into surgical pathology and seeing basically empty offices like a department that was now manned by ghost residents, I found a small group of office staff all crowded in a small side accessioning room.
I thought I was doing some heroic intervention by driving and hand delivering this case to them! I didnt expect a parade and fireworks but....they seemed to act like I had handed them a steaming turd infected with COVID. As they starred at it in total confusion, I told them it was a "bone marrow case with slides"...I shook my head. I actually felt ashamed for them. Had the Rona literally just sapped the life from them like the poor gelflings in the Dark Crystal?
I immediately called the zealous gunner oncology fellow there that I personally dropped off the slides. I was worried the pathology office people in state of Rona induced confusion would just toss the slides into the garbage or something. The oncology fellow was happy 🙂
I wandered back outside through the 20 layers of security and stepping out into the crisp air, I stared back at this unnamed university and laughed, which I must have done out loud because a Chinese lady sitting on the bench asked what I was laughing at. I told her it had never ceased to amuse me that the outside of the hospital at a major university that I will leave unnamed was covered in swastikas. She looked back and seeing what I was talking about starting laughed too.
I thought of Jojo Rabbit and the quote "I have to be a Nazi, I love swastikas!"
I will also add that this swastika covered building had trained some of the greatest physicians of all time. But still I chuckled as a went back to my car.
Getting a tad sleepy I drove over to a great French bakery I had visited before there. I got a coffee and a croissant. Both were incredible! As I walked out of the cafe, my cell phone rang so I sat down by the curb and took the call while I sipped my delicious french cafe au lait and munched on a filled croissant. It was my facility's ICU chief and they wanted to pull a patient off a ventilator. I stared off into the sky wondering why I had been chosen as the arbiter of life and death for this patient when the French cafe owner ran out waiving his hands at me....
Monsieur! Monsieur!! Run! He shouted at me.
Now I was confused, confused to the point of I thought I had woken up this morning and instead of eating a vitamin C gummy or 2 had accidentally taken 20mg of THC. Perhaps I was in some drug induced hallucination so real that the coffee and croissant tasted exactly what my imagination had expected?
A patrol car circled the parking lot coming towards me. The French cafe owner told me a customer had seen me sitting taking my call, eating my croissant and had called law enforcement because I was eating outside a cafe, apparently now a crime here!!!
This had to be a drug induced dream...I lept up and ran to my car, dropping my tasty croissant on the dirty street. I cursed the sky shaking my fist angrily and upon seeing this, the patrol car decided they best not approach me and drove away.
I got into my car.. What a day. What a crappy world we live in now.
I looked on my calendar, this Friday the movie Songbird was due out. I smiled as started my car for the drive home.
