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Published: August 19th 2014
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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 got to talking to the registrars about the Aboriginals. A lot of them have done rotations "in the bush" so they have worked with the population intimately. The rate of alcoholism is devastating, and the average life expectancy for an Aboriginal male is 51. So sad. We run a virtual clinic at Flinders where we call patients who are in the bush and don't
have transportation to come in. Definitely a different way of life. Tomorrow I'll be working at the Repatriation Hospital and will get my first glimpse at foot and ankle surgery here in Australia.
On Sunday I met up with Ai, who is a fellow working at Wakefield, a private hospital. We got Greek food downtown and got to know each other. She has a very interesting life story, including growing up in Africa, attending boarding school in the UK, and ultimately attending medical school and residency in the Philippines. And crazy enough - her parents live in Troy, Michigan! We have really hit it off, and it's nice to have a friend. We are going to run in a race, City to the Bay, at the end of September.
On Monday, I decided to bake a batch of cookies in the flats. The oven was very old, but looked functional. Needless to say, my cookies burned, and the industrial strength fire alarm then went off and the whole building evacuated. The security guards from the hospital came running, and all sweaty and red faced turned off the alarm. I tried to offer my burned cookies as a sheepish
penance, but they weren't a huge hit. Great way to meet the neighbors.
On Tuesday Ai and I went to a bar called "Clever Little Tailor". It's a bar tucked away in an alley and stuck between two buildings. Reminds me a lot of a San Francisco type bar. We drank whiskeys (Buffalo Tres!) and shared a loaf of bread and quinoa truffle rillettes. Also, the bartender had been to Kentucky to try out the whiskey.
On Wednesday, I went to trivia with a girl I met through a Facebook group. Nicole is a veterinarian originally from Maryland who has lived in Adelaide for 4 years now. She's great. She and a group go to this... well... interesting place for trivia every Wednesday. It's called "Christie's Beach Hotel" and it's part Casino, part buffet, part bar and actually a hotel. We are the youngest ones in there normally. We have a group of 8 or so, most work with Nicole. I am the token American who can get very random questions right. We won last week! They also have an all you can eat soft serve ice cream sundae bar... just like Ponderosa.
For the weekend, I hope to make it to the beach. I may rent a bike (you can rent a bike for free at many locations in the city from 9-5 every day!) and bike there. Will write after.
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