Note: The following contains a bit of soul searching on a post vacation come-down. Not the same tone of my other blogs. Enter the caverns of my mind at your own risk. I sit in the blue and grey checkered TigerAir seat 16C in flight from Brisbane to Adelaide... Depressed. Depressed. Depressed. I am coming off of an incredible 3 day weekend in sunny Brisbane, I have the row to myself, have plenty of snacks and entertainment material, and a large black woman in a wonderfully loud yellow dress and matching turban is singing herself to sleep across the aisle. Prime fodder for a relaxing, enjoyable, and musical flight home. And yet I feel I may burst into tears. So what gives? I should know by now. I have a chronic affliction of post vacation blues. ... read more

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I thought it may be helpful to give my very simplistic view of orthopaedic health care in Australia from my limited experience thus far at Flinders Medical Centre. Orthopedics in Australia Intern=intern Registrar=resident Fellow=fellow Consultant=attending Australian undergraduate and medical school is a lot like the US. 4 years undergraduate, 4 years medical school. They are given placement for their intern year which is a guaranteed spot, and this is at one hospital. After that year, they become an RMO. And they can either be on a medicine track, or a surgical track. This is when things get tricky. After a couple year, then they apply for orthopedics, which is extremely competitive. If they do not get a spot, they then have to do another year and apply again (this is when they are a service registrar). ... read more

Settled in at work. I spend most of my time in theatre, though when theatre is slow I've been in clinic. The case load here is quite similar to Stanford - young people getting injured on bikes and car accidents, and old people falling and breaking their wrists and hips. What's amazing is how quickly things get booked. A hip fracture will come into the ED in the morning and then we will operate on it during the afternoon. I've seen some really interesting stuff in clinic too. There was a young boy who fell on a flower pot and then started growing MOLD in his knee. Mold! There are only a few instances of this ever published. So his knee was irrigated with pool cleaner and now he's on some heavy duty antifungal medication. I ... read more

Haiti Missed first flight. Rerouted thru FLa. Sat next to great fam w really smart kid with anxiety problems. Dad said when a sports team loses he would worry about if a player was going to get fired and if they had family. Got on flight to port au prince- amazing shit show. People brought on TVs and trophies that wouldn't fit under their seats but they closed the cabin door. Had to finagle things in, took 30 min. Hilarious. Sat next to wonderful Haitian woman who left Haiti 43 yrs ago and moved to Montreal to become a cosmetologist. Now lives in Miami. Her husband wants to move back to Haiti. Said America is the land of opportunity but she was now too old and too tired to keep up. Wants to make room for ... read more