Gadgets

A year ago, I lost my palm pilot. It is kind of like an accessory brain, so I was rather lost without it for a few days. However, what bothered me more than losing it, was losing the 2 weeks worth of surgery cases that I had recorded in it but not entered on the website that tracks our operative experience.

With the end of the academic year approaching and my book money unspent, I finally broke down and bought another one. I was amazed at how far the technology has advanced since I was shopping for one a couple of years ago. It arrived in the mail today. It plays music, it can connect to the web, it can store microsoft documents/presentations plus all of the stuff that my old one used to do. Now if I could just teach it to do dishes and laundry...

A taste of heaven

I am currently suffering from severe withdrawal, having just returned from the annual SVS (Society for Vascular Surgery) meeting. It was wonderful. Attendees and speakers come from all over the world to discuss the latest and greatest in the field. The range of individuals attending is truly mind-boggling. You have residents and medical students who are high on potential, but low on actual experience. Then you have others who are truly legends in the field of vascular surgery--people like Dr Parodi (he invented the endovascular stent graft repair of abdominal aortic aneursyms, turning a huge operation into a relatively minor procedure), Dr Greenfield (invented the Greenfield filter that is inserted into the IVC to catch clots thereby preventing their embolization to vital structures), Dr Rutherford etc, etc, etc. Its all kind of like getting to heaven and listening to Moses give a presentation on leadership, or Joshua speak about battle strategy, or Noah talk about ship-building and care of animals on cruises.

Not only that, but the food was unbelievable. I still don't know which fork I should have been using first, but in the end the food all got to the right place. The best part about it all is that the SVS paid my surgery program for me to be there, thereby making the whole thing free. That's also kind of heavenly, isn't it?